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Songs of Flying Hours 
 
But ever I hear my red rose call 
 
 Out from the night where the shadows lie. 
 
Songs of Flying Hours 
 
 BY 
 
 / 
 
 Dr. Edward Willard Watson 
 
 M 
 Author of'* To-Day and Yesterday" 
 
 Illustrations by 
 AGNES M. WATSON 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 HENRY T. COATES & CO. 
 
 1898 
 
 5^?pc4 f<i> c ^ V 
 

 Copyright, 1897, by 
 EDWARD WILLARD WATSON 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Poesy, ^ 
 
 In Memory's Garden, 2 
 
 Old Things, 4 
 
 My Red Rose, 4 
 
 " In the Land of Sleep," 6 
 
 Love, 8 
 
 At the Gate, 9 
 
 Reminiscence, lo 
 
 Where Lies Paradise? 13 
 
 Travel, I4 
 
 Love's Mirage, 15 
 
 At Last, l6 
 
 Lost Atlantis, 17 
 
 Tides, i8 
 
 He Never Saw the Sea, 19 
 
 Westward, 20 
 
 Eastward, 21 
 
 My Mountain Top, 24 
 
 A Picture, 25 
 
 Who Sleeps Beneath ? 26 
 
 The Soul Garden, 27 
 
 In the Library, 31 
 
 The Kaleidoscope, 32 
 
 The Masque, 34 
 
 Lost Harmony, 35 
 
 A Song of Autumn, 36 
 
 Behind Her Fan, 37 
 
 The Rosebud, 38 
 
 (iii) 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Ballad of the Lost Soul, 41 
 
 Myth, 47 
 
 From the Villages, 48 
 
 The Song of Orpheus, 49 
 
 The Song of Pan, 51 
 
 The Song of Brahma, 54 
 
 At Mylitta's Shrine, 57 
 
 Hesione, 59 
 
 The Cry of Prometheus, 63 
 
 The Sleep of Ali, 79 
 
 Azrael, 81 
 
 Absolution, 83 
 
 The City's Gold, 87 
 
 O Ruby Flower ! 99 
 
 To the Soul, 100 
 
 Limitation, 100 
 
 Immortality, loi 
 
 "For So He Giveth His Beloved," 102 
 
 Dreams, , . 103 
 
 Down Thro' the Desolate Places, 104 
 
 What Heaven May Be, 105 
 
 "He that Loseth his Life shall Find It," 109 
 
 Sin, 109 
 
 Death, no 
 
 The Narrow Gate, in 
 
 ** Love is Strong as Death," ill 
 
 Seek Ye Above, 113 
 
 Doubt, 115 
 
 Illusion, 115 
 
 The Prayer of Ages, 117 
 
 An Epitaph, 118 
 
 Beyond the Silent Stars, 119 
 
 The Ghost, 120 
 
 The World-Song, 124 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On the Hill, • ^^7 
 
 On the Streets, ^^9 
 
 The Pride of Western Lands, ^3^ 
 
 Palmistry, ^32 
 
 History, ^32 
 
 Driftwood, ^33 
 
 When Wars Shall Cease, ^35 
 
 *' My Peace I Give," ^37 
 
 A Conservative's Plaint, ^3^ 
 
 In the Twentieth Century, ^40 
 
 O Problem ! ^^I 
 
 Teach Me, O Flower, H3 
 
 The Spirit and the Flower, ^43 
 
 Life, ^44 
 
 Natm-e, ^45 
 
 Bacilli, ^46 
 
 Mater Dolorosa, ^47 
 
 Archetypes, ^4^ 
 
 Pandora's Cell, ^49 
 
 Latent Religion, ^5° 
 
 A Creed for To-Day, ^53 
 
 '<Thro' a Glass Darkly," IS^ 
 
 Creation, ^57 
 
 Force, ^57 
 
 The Law of Life, ^59 
 
 God, Fate and Chance, ^59 
 
 To the Sphinx, ^6° 
 
 To the Cherubim, ^^4 
 
 Ignorance, ^5 
 
 Age, ^66 
 
 Personality, ^^^ 
 
 Dust, ^67 
 
 The Soul of Creeds, ^^9 
 
 The Creed of Creeds, i^l 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 POESY. 
 
 Not all the wayward moods of April hours, 
 Nor shadows flying down the velvet hills, 
 Nor trees, nor grasses, nor the scented flowers, 
 But the intangible faint soul that thrills 
 The breath of dawn, the soft, dim scent, 
 That brings to longing hearts sweet discontent. 
 
 Not the unutterable and limpid blue 
 Of silent water, nor the rushing sea, 
 With unknown shapes appearing dimly thro', 
 Bring to the poet's true soul its ecstasy, 
 But what, beyond the sea he cannot know. 
 And what lies in its depths, far down below. 
 
 Not the light thought that on its airy wing 
 Flits thro' his mind and out into the light. 
 Not every song that plumed bird may sing, 
 Nor the pale moon lighting the lonely night. 
 But the mysterious beauty, veiled and faint, 
 The half-unknown, that artist may not paint. 
 I (O 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 The love that tangles in its fragile knots 
 
 The hearts of mortals for a passing day, 
 
 And the great love, impersonal, that blots 
 
 Their little sun out with its blinding ray, 
 
 And men and nations, with their hopes and fears, 
 
 And smiles that glitter from a sea of tears. 
 
 And all the aspiration of the soul 
 That longs for life, resistless and complete. 
 And shudders when the shadows closer roll ; 
 That thrills in victory, crouches in defeat. 
 With all the bits of beauty and of pain 
 That from an old-world's story still remain. 
 
 These are the themes, wider than rolling earth, 
 That fill the soul with music till the pen 
 Strives to portray, in all their grief and mirth, 
 The many things that make the lives of men ; 
 And some true poem grows, like a little flower, 
 And throbs in beauty for a passing hour. 
 
 IN MEMORY'S GARDEN. 
 
 Flowers of the olden time, bright jessamine 
 And honeysuckle tossing on the wall, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 And marigolds that bloom adown the walk, 
 
 Shell-bordered, where the pebbles faintly call 
 
 And crackle underneath slow-coming feet, 
 
 And box-tree hedge and bouncing-Bet, and sweet. 
 
 Beneath the long striped grass, the snowdrop lies, 
 
 And lily of the valley droops and waits, 
 
 And Jacob's ladder and the four o'clock, 
 
 And lady's slipper and blue violets, 
 
 And cat-faced pansies and sweet mignonette. 
 
 And bachelor's button and sweet -William sway, 
 
 And bending fuchsias and geraniums, 
 
 And yellow crocus and the daffodil, 
 
 And rose of Sharon and the hollyhock, 
 
 And wine-dyed dahlias and chrysanthemums. 
 
 With ragged- Robin and the scarlet sage 
 
 That flames in autumn when the leaves are dead, 
 
 And lavender and mint and poppies red ; 
 
 And, on the wall, the moss rose, like a flower 
 
 Before its time grown old and marked to die ; 
 
 And all their scents commingle with the hum 
 
 Of bees that swarm no more and chirp of birds 
 
 And insects ; and the ant-hills by the walk. 
 
 And corners where the moss grows soft and green 
 
 And trellised vines, and purple grapes between ; 
 
 And all the blossoms of the summer-time. 
 
 And spring-time, and the autumn, throng and cry, 
 
 *' We live forever ; it is you who die !" 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 OLD THINGS. 
 
 The old things are the best, even though time 
 
 May dim the gilding, and the sheen grow dull : 
 
 For on the crumbling wall the ivy clings, 
 
 And in the heart the old flowers bud and bloom. 
 
 For with the eld is rest ; the gnarled tree, 
 
 The house grown gray, the rooms all dull and dark. 
 
 Are filled with visions ; yea, and all the things old — 
 
 Things that we once had and that now we miss — 
 
 Old lovers, and the moon that rose of old. 
 
 And flowers of blossom rare and subtle scent 
 
 That wraps them all with memories faint and sweet, 
 
 Like linen old laid up in years gone by 
 
 In some old chest of cedar, with the flowers 
 
 Of pale-faced lavender ; and the faint light 
 
 Comes to the eye that looks, the heart that longs. 
 
 In holy dimness, thro' the tears that fall. 
 
 MY RED ROSE. 
 
 Passionate flower that bloomed for me — 
 Red, red rose, by the garden-walk. 
 Tall as the hedge-row, straight as a tree. 
 Bending down from thy pale-green stalk — 
 Thou hast gone where the shadows lie, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Out in the night where the demons creep, 
 
 Out in the night where fond hopes die, 
 
 The deep, dark night where our loved ones sleep. 
 
 Thou hast gone out, and thy petals fall, 
 
 Pale and withered and dimmed with dew, 
 
 Blown where the night-winds croon and call, 
 
 Answering faintly, fond and true ; 
 
 Out in the night where the shadows lie, 
 
 Out in the night where the demons creep, 
 
 Out in the darkness where fond hopes die. 
 
 The lone, dark night where our dear ones sleep. 
 
 Lone is the path in the garden left. 
 
 Dull are the trees and the flowers gay ; 
 
 Missing thee only, of thee bereft, 
 
 I would follow thee far away ; 
 
 Out in the night where the shadows lie, 
 
 Out in the night where the demons creep, 
 
 The long, dark night where fond hopes die. 
 
 The lone, lone night where our loved ones sleep. 
 
 Weep for my red, red rose that grew 
 High by the side of the garden-wall ; 
 Flowers may bloom for me fair and new, 
 But ever I hear my red rose call 
 Out from the night where the shadows lie. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Out from the night where the demons creep, 
 
 The awful night where our fond hopes die, 
 
 The dread, still night where our loved ones sleep. 
 
 " IN THE LAND OF SLEEP." 
 
 I will go down to the ''Land of the Sleeping," 
 I will go down to the ** Land of Sleep ;" 
 For I may find there a heart that's keeping 
 Love for me ever with eyes that weep. 
 I would cry to her, ** I am weary, 
 Grown so old with the wear of things ; 
 Thou, in the land which I thought so dreary, 
 Float forever on youth's glad wings. 
 
 I am old with the old world's story, 
 I am worn with the old world's woes, 
 I have enough of fame and glory. 
 And all the prizes the old world knows ; 
 I am steeped with the cry of battle. 
 The pain and anguish, the tears and blood. 
 The crash of the cannon, the rifle's rattle. 
 And the wail of its desolate widowhood. 
 
 I have so much to tell thee, leaning 
 Weary head on thy welcome breast. 
 Words and sighs and the silence meaning 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 More than the words of the world's unrest. 
 I would kneel to thee — weeping — praying, 
 Only forget — as I once forgot.' 
 I would listen to hear thee saying, 
 Others forgot thee, but I did not.' " 
 
 I would hark, with heart that's throbbing. 
 Only to hear thee lisp my name ; 
 Smile, and smother with smiles the sobbing 
 Cry of my heart that sinks with shame. 
 We would love in the '* Land of Sleeping" 
 More than the love of the world's short years ; 
 We would fly, while the world was creeping, 
 Into the silence where no man hears. 
 
 We would wander away forever 
 Thro' the fields where the day is dim ; 
 Darkness and dying no more could sever 
 Happier hearts than the seraphim ; 
 Time would vanish and years go over. 
 Care and the life of the long lost days, 
 While forever the loved and lover 
 Thread the maze of the pathless ways. 
 
 Love's fruition, the heart's rejoicing, 
 Pain a phantom that's lost in joy, 
 Souls the hope of the silence voicing, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Sin a dream to no more annoy ; 
 This is life in the land of dreaming, 
 This is love in the world of death, 
 Lit by sunlight forever streaming 
 Or lost in shadows that brood beneath. 
 
 I will go down to the " Land of the Sleeping,' 
 I will go down to the *' Land of Sleep ;" 
 There I will find a heart that's keeping 
 Watch for me ever with eyes that weep. 
 I will cry to her, ** Take me only 
 Into thine arms and forget the past ; 
 Love me — forgive me — the world was lonely. 
 But there is rest in thy love at last," 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Love is a flower 
 
 In the dim woodland hiding ; 
 
 Love is a rose 
 
 Scenting the morning air ; 
 
 Love for an hour, 
 
 Love for a life abiding, 
 
 Ever it grows 
 
 For hearts that long and dare. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Love is a dream 
 
 That comes by night unbidden ; 
 
 Love is a vision 
 
 Fading with the dawn ; 
 
 Love is a stream 
 
 Beneath the rushes hidden, 
 
 Murmuring derision, 
 
 Laughing us to scorn. 
 
 AT THE GATE. 
 
 Dear Love, I wait, just at the gate, 
 Beneath the gnarled apple-tree ; 
 Its blossoms sweet fall at my feet. 
 While here I wait for thee. 
 
 Stars shine above that know my love, 
 And light the sky for thee and me ; 
 The moon steals white on the still night, 
 While here I wait for thee. 
 
 For spring is come and fire-flies roam. 
 Like falling stars that glint and flee. 
 And all is still ; the daffodil 
 And I wait here for thee. 
 
lO SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Birds flutter soft in boughs aloft, 
 Where in the dark I cannot see, 
 And damp, sweet air blows on my hair, 
 While here I wait for thee. 
 
 Flash stars above with silent love. 
 Bloom flowers of earth more rich and free ; 
 My heart beats high, my love is nigh. 
 My love has come to me. 
 
 REMINISCENCE. 
 
 'Tis not the peaceful beauty of the vales. 
 Nor glory clinging to the ancient hills. 
 Nor the low murmur of a thousand rills, 
 Nor the sea sparkling with the distant sails, 
 That makes the heart beat high, the bosom sigh. 
 And brings the tear unbidden to the eye. 
 
 In some old garden, wild-grown and forlorn, 
 We come by chance and stand in idle mood, 
 Where, rioting, run, like creatures of the wood, 
 The staid old blossoms once so nobly born ; 
 And, with the mingled sweetness of the flowers, 
 Steals over us a dream of unknown hours. 
 
In some old garden wild-nrown and forlorn." 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 1 
 
 The very odor of the soil is sweet, 
 
 The scent of hedges and the mossy gate 
 
 That bids no more the weary traveller wait ; 
 
 The long-grown grasses tangled round our feet, 
 
 The hum upon the heavy air ; they all, 
 
 To the dazed soul, some misty scenes recall. 
 
 Down Cairo's street we wander, strange and new ; 
 Past mosque and minaret and o'er the land 
 Where, lone upon the desert's drifting sand, 
 Watches the Sphinx the world's long ages through; 
 Or down the Nile we drift, with curious sail. 
 Remembering faintly all its scented gale. 
 
 What are ye, O ye sorrows, that assail ? 
 
 For never heart with joy and hope beats high, 
 
 But Melancholy, ever sad, doth lie 
 
 Upon us, and her music is a wail 
 
 For something known once and forever fled, 
 
 For some one loved and sometime lost and dead. 
 
 Is it the old ancestral heart that beats, 
 The ancient cells we guard within our shrine, 
 That thrill to strains, for human ear too fine, 
 When the far traveller on his journey greets 
 The lands his fathers loved, for which they bled, 
 Those multitudes, now silent, lost and dead ? 
 
12 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Thrill ye, O buried shapes, when o'er your grave 
 The footfall of some far descendant comes ? 
 Do ye rise up, and to your crumbling homes 
 Come swarming, phantoms of the strong and brave? 
 And do ye whisper in some wondrous way, 
 And on our heart-strings your weird music play? 
 
 Is there a soul in every man who lives 
 
 Unknown to what he proudly calls '* Himself" — 
 
 A purer spirit, far above the pelf, 
 
 That to our living zest and fulness gives — 
 
 A soul that knows what we may never know, 
 
 But waits and watches till we nobler grow ? 
 
 A soul that warns, a soul that strives to tell 
 Each earnest heart, but finds no language fit, 
 That writes within us, with faint gleams that flit 
 Across our darkness, words we cannot spell, 
 While, in our unbelief, we smile and doubt, 
 Yet love and wisdom wait unseen without ? 
 
 Oh, nobler part we long for, reach thy hand 
 Down to the humble soul that strives to know 
 Thee, and, forever clasped with thee, to go 
 Thro' ways of life none else can understand. 
 Strive with us still, thro' all our erring years, 
 Tho' 'tis thy sorrow fills our eyes with tears. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 3 
 
 WHERE LIES PARADISE? 
 
 Oh, where hes paradise ? 
 
 Is it where gleaming rivers flow ? 
 
 Is it where scented zephyrs blow 
 
 O'er blossoms rare ? 
 
 Not there it lies. 
 
 Oh, where lies paradise ? 
 
 Is it where dreamy towers rise, white 
 
 Against the moonlit night, 
 
 In meadows fair ? 
 
 Not there it lies. 
 
 Oh, where lies paradise ? 
 
 Is it in happy homes 
 
 Where, at the eve, man comes, 
 
 Nor Cometh care ? 
 
 Not there it lies. 
 
 Oh, where lies paradise ? 
 Seek in your heart and find, 
 O man, forever blind. 
 Where love lies, there 
 Lies paradise. 
 
14 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 TRAVEL. 
 
 Round every ruin, like a clinging vine, 
 
 There creeps a dim remembrance faint and sweet. 
 
 We wander on thro' storied halls, and meet 
 
 A something everywhere none may define ; 
 
 Where rusted armor ever mutely waits 
 
 For sound of battle at the castle gates. 
 
 The heart of man warms ever to the old. 
 The very spicery of the hedge-rows green 
 Calls like a voice from out the past, unseen. 
 And tells us we are one, tho* time has rolled 
 Legions of years betwixt our lives and those 
 Who lie forgotten, where some garden grows. 
 
 'Tis something underneath the mind we know ; 
 Nor history telleth, nor the eye that sees, 
 But some ethereal essence on the breeze. 
 Some perfume on the winds that idly blow, 
 Some faintest tinkle of a distant bell. 
 Some wailing music in the sea's low swell. 
 
 Seek Memory ! Stretch thy loving, eager arms 
 To reach the misty cloud of shades that swim, 
 Like phantoms, thro' the vales of memory dim, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. I 5 
 
 In the faint light that frights us while it charms. 
 Tho' soul may shudder, or tho' heart may leap, 
 Into our arms they ever, loving, creep. 
 
 LOVE'S MIRAGE. 
 
 O mirage of the arid sands of life ; 
 
 O Love, that cometh trembling o'er the plain ; 
 
 O joy, that lendeth to the heart an hour 
 
 Of languor and delight, but hath no power 
 
 To banish the eternal pang of pain, 
 
 Dreamy and soft we see thee, like a star, 
 
 And toil to reach thee thro' the burning sands, 
 
 Yet never may attain thee, shining far 
 
 Beyond the circle of our earthly lands. 
 
 Thy palm-trees droop, thy fountains plash in vain ; 
 
 We cannot catch thee, ever flying before. 
 
 Vanishing in the desert wastes again. 
 
 And, as we fly to grasp thee, seen no more. 
 
 O mirage bright, O land that never was, 
 
 O vision of a heaven we cannot reach ; 
 
 O Love, the Infinite, the earth shall pass 
 
 Away into the silence, and our speech 
 
 Shall die in stillness, with one last "Alas !" 
 
 O syren song, O light of golden hair, 
 
 O tangled threads that shame the golden light. 
 
1 6 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 O snowy breast, O faces, pale and fair, 
 We miss you when forever falls the night ; 
 For never arms shall fold nor lips shall press 
 To lips, all cold, one day in nothingness. 
 
 AT LAST. 
 
 I come, O heart so true, 
 
 At last to thee. 
 
 All others fail. 
 
 And, wan and pale 
 
 With the rude blows 
 
 The world has showered on me, 
 
 I come for rest to thee. 
 
 Down at thy feet 
 
 I lay the sins of years ; 
 
 I claim no mercy 
 
 In my bitter pain. 
 
 But thy blest tears, 
 
 Falling upon me like the gentle rain, 
 
 Free me from fears. 
 
 O heart that never tires, 
 O heart that never fails. 
 Ever forgives, nothing requires, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. \^ 
 
 Tho' I have wronged thee sore, 
 My tired head I rest 
 Upon thy breast, 
 And roam no more. 
 
 LOST ATLANTIS. 
 
 For every heart, Atlantis lies, 
 A land of dreams, beneath the sea ; 
 Lost long ago, like paradise^ 
 But treasured tearfidly. 
 
 For from below, where sea-blooms glow. 
 And emerald algae wind and float. 
 As music strange doth swell and flow 
 Up to our drifting boat. 
 
 The bells are tolling, faint and sweet, 
 In the old towers that crumble there. 
 For friends whom we no more can meet, 
 For hopes that vanished in despair. 
 
 There, down below me, ever lies 
 The joy, the light, the heart so free. 
 Where lieth every love that dies, 
 Lost vuith Atlantis in the sea, 
 
 2 
 
1 8 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 TIDES. 
 
 The tide is out, and the yellow sand 
 Glints back the light of the setting sun, 
 As he sinks to rest in a crimson band 
 That lingers after the night's begun ; 
 
 And life goes out, and the pallid face 
 Lies cold and still, and the eyes we know 
 Glance back no more with a winning grace, 
 Nor hide, 'neath lashes, their tears' o'erflow ; 
 
 And hope goes out and the world is bare. 
 And the barren sands of life are seen. 
 And wealth is flown, and carking care 
 Thrusts its grim visage our joys between. 
 
 But wait, for again the tide will come ; 
 And list, for the ripples will surely flow, 
 And glad waves seek once more their home, 
 On the yellow sands, in the sunhght's glow. 
 
 For life has tides, and it comes and goes, 
 Though but for a moment it may abide ; 
 And, sure as the ocean forever flows. 
 Death's ebb will yield unto life's new tide. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 9 
 
 HE NEVER SAW THE SEA. 
 
 They say the sea is wild and grand, 
 And waves come roUing in so high 
 They dash upon the soHd land 
 And throw their foam against the sky ; 
 That ever-blessed breezes blow, 
 Tho' long and hot the season be, 
 And there 'tis perfect joy to go ; 
 I never saw the sea. 
 
 'Tis fifty miles from us to where 
 Those breezes blow and billows rage ; 
 Here summer's long ; from sultry air 
 There's no escape for youth or age ; 
 The nights are close, the houses hot, 
 One longs for once to wander free ; 
 But I am poor, and so cannot ; 
 I never saw the sea. 
 
 I used to watch them coming home 
 
 At evening, when the air was still. 
 
 With ruddy faces, fresh with foam 
 
 And spray, that blows with welcome chill. 
 
 I wondered what the waves were like. 
 
 And longed, and dreamed, with childish glee, 
 
20 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 That once the spray my face did strike ; 
 I never saw the sea. 
 
 Give me a chance, O stranger kind, 
 To reach that shore before I die. 
 I see no more — my eyes are blind — 
 Nor earth, nor even the sultry sky ; 
 But I can fancy what 'tis like. 
 If once the breeze blew cool on me, 
 And if the spray my face should strike, 
 My lips would kiss the sea ! 
 My soul would know the sea ! 
 
 WESTWARD. 
 
 Out of the East we came, with faces set to the West, 
 Leaving the lands of peace, warring forever with 
 
 men ; 
 Daring the virgin wood and the crag of the eagle's 
 
 nest. 
 The roar of the river's flood, the deadly mist of the 
 
 fen. 
 Ever away to the West, to the brink of the unknown 
 
 sea, 
 And we float in the wrack of the storm till we drift 
 
 to a shore unknown. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 21 
 
 Conquering ever and stern, and cruel our hand 
 
 must be, 
 Tarrying only to reap from the field another has 
 
 sown. 
 Over the trackless land till the utmost sea breaks 
 
 dark, 
 And we rage with a mad desire, for beyond are the 
 
 worlds we fled. 
 Shall we fly ever west like the bird, or drift like a 
 
 burning spark, 
 To fall at the end of the world and cease when our 
 
 hope is dead ? 
 Or shall we turn again to reconquer the lands we 
 
 scorn ; 
 Sweep like a whirlwind of fire on the homes of 
 
 plenty and peace. 
 Leaving the gold of the West for the silvery light 
 
 of the morn, 
 Till, filled with the whiteness of light, forever our 
 
 wanderings cease ? 
 
 EASTWARD. 
 
 In rarest hours of rarest days 
 
 A voice cries in my heart to me : 
 
 *' Go forth, and seek through many ways 
 
 A land that lies beyond the sea." 
 
22 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 *' For this unknown but subtle scent, 
 This glamor that an hour doth fall, 
 Waking thy soul to discontent, 
 Is but thy lost land's distant call." 
 
 The lanes of England lovely are. 
 The Scottish heather sweet to see ; 
 But still the voice calls, faint and far : 
 *' Tarry not here ; I wait for thee." 
 
 Nor German land, nor German tongue, 
 Nor isles of the ^gean Sea, 
 Nor yet the light that lingers bright 
 Upon thee, golden Italy. 
 
 The names that stir my pulses' beat. 
 In unknown tongue, are dear to me : 
 Provence, the land of roses sweet, 
 And, dearer still, fair Normandie. 
 
 Call me, O call me, till I come ; 
 In life, in death, my soul will cry : 
 *' Not here, not here can be my home. 
 Nor these my fields that round me lie ;" 
 
 For far away, across the sea. 
 There lies a land whose scenes I know. 
 Whose plains and mountains wait for me. 
 And for my soul its rivers flow. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 23 
 
 Not here, not here, where alien things 
 
 And ahen men my soul assail ; 
 
 But to my land my soul, with wings 
 
 Of love, would fly, though strength may fail. 
 
 I dwell, a stranger, in your gates, 
 O people of these new-found lands ; 
 My heart in sorrow droops and waits 
 For its dear home with reaching hands. 
 
 And ever comes, by day or night, 
 When least I look, some little thing, 
 Some trick of shadow, glint of light, 
 Some note of bird on restless wing ; 
 
 And heart leaps up and heart grows faint 
 With longing, like a soul that sees. 
 Far as a star, its love, sweet saint. 
 And prays for her on bended knees. 
 
 My soul leaps up, then sad it grows, 
 And sinks in sorrow with a sigh ; 
 Its home, its land, alas, it knows 
 It may not reach before it die. 
 
 Yet, maybe, when the day is done, 
 And, from its chain, life springeth free. 
 High in the air of heaven fair. 
 My land, I then may float to thee ; 
 
24 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 For souls may drift, like fleecy clouds, 
 Across the sky of death and night, 
 And in that hour, resistless power 
 May guide their memory's longing flight. 
 
 Then, fair Provence and Normandie, 
 And shores that fringe the ancient sea, 
 And languorous air and sunlight fair, 
 I yet may live and love in thee. 
 
 For longing lives, though life go out ; 
 Yea, longing lives — the mightier thing, 
 Till, rising high o'er death and doubt. 
 We soar on its resistless wing. 
 
 MY MOUNTAIN TOP. 
 
 mountain top, so clear, so dear, 
 
 1 know thy every seam and scar ; 
 
 I know wliere light lingers when night 
 Creeps up thy hills, with day at war. 
 I know where morn in gold is born ; 
 While darkness still the vale doth fill, 
 I watch thy peak above the cloud. 
 That silent floats when storms are still. 
 Thy summit high will never fly 
 Before the driving wind and rain ; 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 25 
 
 Thy grccn-clad side will still abide, 
 Tho' men may go and come again ; 
 Nor time can mark, nor dawn nor dark, 
 Nor will thy purple fail at eve ; 
 But thou shalt stand alone, and grand, 
 While years into the ages weave. 
 
 A PICTURI^:. (Paraphrased.) 
 
 Behind the cottage the forest spread, 
 Like turf that covers the buried dead — 
 Beautiful, awful, filled with sights 
 And shapes and sounds and elves and sprites- 
 Beautiful, terrible ; none might dare 
 To enter its shade but the fisher there. 
 Sitting, at eve, in his cottage door. 
 Mending his net on the sanded floor. 
 He can dare where others fear. 
 What to him the shapes that rear 
 Their fantastic limbs above ? 
 All within him filled with love 
 Toward mankind, and peace and joy, 
 Fear in him has no employ ; 
 Or if darker thoughts intrude. 
 Shudders creep, fancies delude, 
 With a fervent prayer he scatters 
 
26 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 All their wiles ; to him it matters 
 Little whether demons hear him, 
 So the angels' selves be near him. 
 
 WHO SLEEPS BENEATH? 
 
 The slender spires reach to the sky, 
 Their arches airily springing ; 
 The vast gray walls seem up to fly. 
 The ivy to them clinging. 
 
 They shade the land, themselves in light, 
 Shadows below them flinging, 
 And half the world beneath is night, 
 Tho' chimes for morn are ringing. 
 
 What wondrous artist drew the plan, 
 What grand designer dreamed it, 
 What workers, mightier than man. 
 Love's dearest task have deemed it? 
 
 Who laid the massive stone beneath 
 Its corner proudly rising ? 
 Who stood before it, holding breath 
 At its pure lines surprising ? 
 
 Behold, the maker lowly sleeps. 
 The shadows o'er him streaming ; 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 27 
 
 As higher still each spire leaps, 
 Lies he in endless dreaming ? 
 
 For now they mourn for him and grieve, 
 And anthems chant before him, 
 And myth and mystery they weave 
 In shadows falling o'er him. 
 
 THE SOUL GARDEN. 
 
 L 
 
 Within our eyes a garden lies, 
 Where souls may wander at their will ; 
 It wakes to life when daylight dies, 
 And blossoms when the world is still. 
 
 When eyes are closed in weariness, 
 And, for our rest, we longing lie, 
 And life is dull, and dreariness 
 Fills all the soul with empty cry. 
 
 Then out before our closed eyes 
 Bright colors flash and wane and glow, 
 And iridescent shapes arise, 
 And waves of color flow. 
 
2S SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 A star intense, of brilliant white, 
 That gives the mind a sense of pain, 
 Burns in the eyelids, till its light 
 Fades into darkness, and again 
 
 Its growing edges glow with hues 
 Tinged round with a prismatic light, 
 And soon its centre dark renews 
 Its fire with flashes bright. 
 
 And if awhile we fix our eyes 
 Upon the form that for us grows, 
 Its spirals quickly higher rise 
 Into a glowing rose. 
 
 And banks of pale-blue blossoms soon 
 Encircle it, when, lo ! 'tis changed. 
 And purple droplets downward run, 
 In varied rows arranged. 
 
 Behold the Soul of flowers, that moves 
 The world of matter to their birth. 
 Souls of the blossoms nature loves 
 And spreads upon the barren earth. 
 
 II. 
 
 And now, amid the throbbing mist 
 Of color, figures strange appear — 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 29 
 
 All varied shapes that can exist, 
 And faces droll and drear. 
 
 They move, from left to right, so fast 
 That mental eye can scarcely trace 
 Their outline as they hurry past. 
 Bound for some undiscovered place, 
 
 While whorls of every color gay 
 Flash out and burn upon the view, 
 And quickly, as they fade away, 
 Return in combinations new. 
 
 III. 
 
 But if we will, with all our will. 
 The flying figures pause and stay, 
 The panorama standeth still. 
 In all its color gay. 
 
 Then can we study closer all 
 The wondrous picture, line by line ; 
 Each face to memory recall, 
 And strive its meaning to divine.. 
 
 Whence come they ? Doth the memory lay 
 Them all in store, to be brought out 
 In border-land, 'twixt dream and day ? 
 We query, in our doubt ; 
 
30 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Or are they caught from things around 
 Our sleeping-place, our waking hours ? 
 Are they the souls of sight and sound, 
 Or do they hint of deeper powers ? 
 
 Can we discern, when oft we yearn 
 To know the future, or to guess 
 What far away goes on, to-day, 
 To bring us grief or happiness ? 
 
 Doth soul of thing unto it cling, 
 And wrap its being, fold on fold. 
 Or do our eyes but changes ring 
 By night on what was told 
 
 When, open-eyed, we, waking, tried 
 To see the world in every guise. 
 Till, when we sleep, the visions ride 
 Through space, before our eyes ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 Are, then, the gardens of the night 
 Useless to us, for purpose sure. 
 Meaning no more, no nearer right, 
 Than dreams, no fitter to endure ? 
 
 Or do they tell, if we might know, 
 The story old we long to hear, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 3 1 
 
 Of all that on the earth did grow, 
 In times remote and near ? 
 
 Can it be true, as mystics rave. 
 That all the world its story sings. 
 If but the ears to hear we have. 
 And understand the soul of things ? 
 
 IN THE LIBRARY. 
 
 The fire is dim, the light is low, 
 And silent, in my easy-chair, 
 I sit and dream, and fancies flow 
 About me in the darkling air. 
 
 The walls with books are covered well ; 
 Quite to the ceiling high they rise, 
 And in the darkness I can tell 
 Where each beloved volume lies. 
 
 But now they seem to live and move, 
 And faces from their bindings stare ; 
 And all the authors that I love. 
 And their creations, fill the air. 
 
 They never speak ; their eager eyes 
 Look for companions never found, 
 
32 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 As each into the darkness dies 
 In turn, and makes no sound. 
 
 And groups float by, but never gaze 
 Upon each other ; all, intent 
 On unknown errand, go their ways, 
 Or stand in mute bewilderment. 
 
 What are ye — real or feigned things ? 
 And will ye live some grander life, 
 When we, who breathe, have lost our wings. 
 And fallen, silent, in the strife ? 
 
 And who are greatest, those who found 
 A city grand, a palace high. 
 Or those who till the spirit-ground 
 Of fancy, that can never die ? 
 
 For men may hve, and do, and dare. 
 Yet fade away, by all forgot ; 
 But these creations, foul and fair. 
 Live on, and perish not. 
 
 THE KALEIDOSCOPE. 
 
 Into a tube, with mirrors lined, 
 We empty all that's in the mind — 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 33 
 
 Scraps of the sunlight, gleams of hope, 
 Small bits of love in homely guise. 
 And things from books, wherein one looks 
 At times, in hope to grow more wise ; 
 And remnants of antiquity. 
 And black and blue and hazel eyes ; 
 Bright thoughts, and days of darkness, when 
 The lights go out, and rarest times 
 That children have, and sometimes men ; 
 With bits of scene from foreign climes, 
 And awful things ; philosophy. 
 And metaphysics, creed and prayer ; 
 While doubt and faith their tribute bear, 
 And music, with its dulcet strain. 
 And law that curbs with iron rein, 
 And lawlessness and mystery. 
 With jugglery and history ; 
 All these we bring, and cast behind 
 The little mirrors of the mind, 
 That catch them all, and then reflect 
 And multiply, as they collect. 
 Into a figure uniform, 
 The odds and ends with which we swarm. 
 And, gazing with the mental eye, 
 We wonders in the tube descry, 
 Richer than starry fields that lie 
 Above us in the jewelled sky ; 
 3 
 
34 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 For with each turn there springs to view 
 A radiant world of vision new ; 
 And though each bit is old enough, 
 And we can analyze the stuff, 
 And see the rags and tinsel there. 
 The wondrous whole is, oh ! so fair ; 
 And all is by reflection done — 
 Three images combined in one. 
 This is the mind ; it just combines 
 What bits it has in varied lights. 
 And multiplies by three, and finds 
 Its rich reward in wondrous sights ; 
 And all we think and all we find. 
 And call the product of the mind, 
 Is but the viewing common things 
 In mirrors, and a hand that flings 
 The mass around, and, lo ! there springs 
 To light some star with radiant rings. 
 
 THE MASQUE. 
 
 A bal masque is life, and men 
 And women to the music dance ; 
 When lights burn low, the partners then 
 Into each other's eyes may glance, 
 But never may they cast aside 
 The veil that hides their being real ; 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 35 
 
 They come, they go, they march, they dance, 
 And through the mazy circle steal ; 
 They cling, they clasp, they love, they sigh, 
 They guess and many questions ask, 
 But never may the cords untie 
 That fasten on the face life's mask. 
 Oh, when doth soul unrobe and shine 
 Before its fellows bright and true ? 
 Some day, dear heart that I call mine, 
 Shall you know me and I know you ? 
 
 LOST HARMONY. 
 
 O dweller on some other star, 
 
 To whom comes, faint, the light of this. 
 
 Thou canst not know what hearts there are 
 
 That live, and long, and die, and miss. 
 
 Through morn and eve, through shining day 
 
 And lonely night, some blessed thing. 
 
 That ever lures them on their way, 
 
 And then evades, with swifter wing ; 
 
 Some happiness, that words will fail 
 
 Ever to tell, or thought to feign ; 
 
 Some light in which their sun grows pale, 
 
 Some melody that mocks the strain 
 
 That here they pour from breaking hearts. 
 
36 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Oh, what can be that ecstasy 
 
 That Hes beyond our sighs, and parts 
 
 The things we are from all we long to be ? 
 
 Are we discordant notes, seeking lifelong, 
 
 Our place of rest in some sweet, wondrous song? 
 
 A SONG OF AUTUMN. 
 
 Drift, leaves, across the lonely path 
 Whereon I walk when frost is nigh ; 
 Blow, winds of autumn ; let your wrath 
 Darken the world's low, threatening sky. 
 
 Blow, leaves, before the sighing wind, 
 In colors gay to dimmer grow ; 
 Sing, leaves, your low, sad song, and find 
 A grave beneath the coming snow. 
 
 Flame, leaves, against the gray above, 
 Flash out in scarlet, dyed blood-red. 
 For gone is all the green we love. 
 And the bright world of flowers is dead. 
 
 Wither, crumple and rustle, leaves, 
 
 Blowing along the garden-walk ; 
 
 Winter cometh, and nature grieves 
 
 For the blossoms lost from the empty stalk. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 37 
 
 Veil, mists, the glory on the hills, 
 Where die the trees, in passion's hour, 
 In blazing agony that fills 
 The misty distance ; perish, flower. 
 
 And die, ye scarlet blossoms lone, 
 That flaunt when all are gone but ye ; 
 Droop to the winter winds that moan 
 A requiem for the flower and tree. 
 
 BEHIND HER FAN. 
 
 My love unknown, for thee I wait. 
 For thee I watch by day and night ; 
 I cannot wander wide and free. 
 As thou dost, in the gay sunlight, 
 And, oh, thy feet, they come so late. 
 
 My love unknown, I watch for thee, 
 While here I wait from morn to eve ; 
 I deck myself in fair array, 
 And many charms for thee I weave, 
 Like bird for whom no mate may be, 
 
 Or like the flower of early May, 
 That spreads its scented petals wide 
 For wandering bees that venture far 
 Upon the spring's aerial tide. 
 And blooms and hopes alway. 
 
38 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 And long I wait thy lingering car, 
 And time still hurries swiftly on ; 
 Each face I scan to find the man 
 That I may rest my love upon, 
 And trust my fate to make, or mar. 
 
 And still I wait, and sit, and scan. 
 And take the chance that comes to me, 
 Among the few that stingy fate 
 Gives out, by chance and grudgingly, 
 Behind the fluttering of my fan. 
 
 But happy thou, my unknown mate, 
 To scan the world, to stand aloft 
 And criticise the flowers sweet, 
 And test, and try, discarding oft. 
 While we still watch the hours fleet. 
 Where music sounds and dancing feet. 
 
 THE ROSEBUD. 
 
 Laughing, she plucked a rosebud white, 
 Damp with the dews of coming night ; 
 She placed it on his breast, and said, 
 Guard you this, living ; guard it, dead. 
 For with the man who this shall bear. 
 And him alone, my heart I'll share ; 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 39 
 
 And him who brings me safe this flower 
 Thro' battle, will I love that hour." 
 
 O'er the green fields the battle-cloud 
 Winds like a white and ghostly shroud. 
 The rose, wherever danger lies, 
 On his brave breast, to meet it, flies ; 
 Where thickest cloud hides struggling men, 
 It folds the rosebud closest then. 
 
 At dawn of day, war's thunder o'er, 
 The maid steals from her cottage-door. 
 With many a curious, anxious one. 
 To see the work dread death has done. 
 With throbbing heart she draweth near 
 And searcheth for her cavalier. 
 Yet will not think he can be here. 
 For he is something almost dear. 
 
 All faces strange ; heart lighter grew. 
 As to the front she nearer drew ; 
 There, at her feet, a soldier lies 
 Beside his steed, with stony eyes ; 
 Over his heart his hand, in death. 
 Is grasped, as though to stay his breath. 
 One look she gives into his face. 
 Raises the cold hand from its place ; 
 
40 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Beneath, the snowy rosebud Hes, 
 Guarded, in death, from careless eyes. 
 
 **Tho' dead he brings my rose," she said, 
 ** And comes to claim me from the dead." 
 
 Then stooped and kissed, with fluttering breath, 
 
 His lips, and fell there, white in death. 
 
 And underneath the vaulted dome 
 
 Of the old abbey, in one tomb, 
 
 They sleep ; where idle travellers stray, 
 
 And peasants kneel at eve to pray. 
 
 Above, carved in the stained stone, 
 
 There lies a rosebud, writing none. 
 
THE BALLAD OF THE LOST SOUL. 
 
 The prince of the spirits that rule the air, 
 And over the earth hold gentle sway, 
 Has mounted in haste, and over the waste 
 And into the night has ridden away. 
 
 And through the gloom at last he has come. 
 Through mists of darkness and death-clouds deep. 
 Through endless shades, where the last hope fades. 
 To the iron gates where the lost souls weep. 
 
 High were the pillars on either side, 
 Lost in the cloud was the topmost stone ; 
 Open the way, but no foot might stray. 
 And the road lay silent, untrod and lone. 
 
 But alway an angel^ shining bright, 
 In the pathway stood ^ and barred the way, 
 And he flashed with light on the ebon night, 
 And beyond hiin the land of the blessed lay. 
 
 His eyes zvere blue as the sapphire stone 
 As he stood, all pitiless, stern ajid still, 
 And for ages gone had he dwelt alone. 
 To guard the gate from the soids of ill. 
 
 (41) 
 
42 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 ** Angel of light, I come, through night, 
 To crave a boon from thy mighty hand ; 
 A mortal maid in the grave is laid, 
 Who is dearer than all in my spirit land. 
 
 *' She scorned the love of the sons of men, 
 She pined, and faded, and died to be 
 Free as the air, when the sun shines fair. 
 And live in the boundless sky with me. 
 
 " Oh, where hast thou hidden the soul of my love, 
 The soul of my love who died for me? 
 O'er the earth I rove and the sky above, 
 And now I have come for her soul to thee." 
 
 TJie angel shone in the wondrous light, 
 And his sivord was grasped in his white right hand^ 
 And its blade flashed out in the gloom about, 
 And drove back the soids to their lonely land. 
 
 Roiv on rozu, in the silent air, 
 
 Crowded their faces, grim and gray. 
 
 And they mnrmnred aloud, like a threa filing cloud. 
 
 But their eyes forever looked far away. 
 
 ** What hast thou done ?" the angel cried, 
 " Prince of the air, with the souls I gave? 
 For I bid thee keep the souls that weep 
 For the little sins that the world forgave." 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 43 
 
 '* I have taken, O angel, the souls that sinned 
 With a little sin, while their hearts were true ; 
 I have sowed them wide on the green hillside, 
 Under the heaven and the sky of blue. 
 
 *' I strewed them wide and I strewed them far. 
 And they lie o'er the fields in a golden sheen ; 
 And they toss in the breeze like the spray of the 
 
 seas — 
 Stars of white in a sea of green. 
 
 '' I hid them under the oak-tree root ; 
 
 I clad them in purple and palest blue ; 
 
 I bended their head, like a hope that's dead. 
 
 And I shaded them soft, like a love that's true. 
 
 " I buried them deep, and safe I keep 
 The souls that burned with a mad desire ; 
 There, soft, they sleep, and the tears they weep 
 Shine under the earth like sparks of fire. 
 
 " I dropt in the wave the souls you gave, 
 And under the ocean they wind and sway ; 
 On the rocks they grow, where the light is low, 
 And gloom and silence abide alway. 
 
 '* Give back my love ; I have done thy quest , 
 I have saved the souls that ye bid, from blight ; 
 
44 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 The humble, they rest in a lowly nest, 
 And the daring I dyed in colors bright, 
 
 " And ever they toss and proudly nod 
 To the blowing wind, till the day is done. 
 From the bright green sod gazing up to God, 
 As they wait His hour at the set of sun." 
 
 Then the angel cried, with a bitter cry, 
 " The soul you seek in your hand I laid. 
 Far from your eye have you let her lie. 
 Lost mid millions and sore dismayed ! 
 
 " O heedless prince, thou hast failed to keep 
 The soul that was fairest of all I gave ; 
 Have you left her asleep in some prison deep 
 Under the earth or under the wave ? 
 
 " Even now doth she cry and long for thee 
 On some lone hill, when the sun is gone; 
 Or, lost to the sight, in the silvery light 
 Of waving blossoms, waits she alone ?" 
 
 The prince is silent ; he answers not ; 
 
 But out in the darkness speeds away : 
 
 He searches the mine where the rubies shine, 
 
 And ever he seeks, by night and day, 
 
And ever the angel stern and cold 
 Standeth silent and answereth not." 
 
1 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 45 
 
 Down in the gloom of the ocean blue, 
 
 Under the sea where the lost ones sleep, 
 
 And the ships they manned strew the soft white 
 
 sand. 
 And the sea-weeds over them wind and creep. 
 
 Ever the hillside haunteth he. 
 And the dismal shade of the forest deep. 
 And he finds no rest for his tortured breast ; 
 He has lost the soul that he longed to keep. 
 
 Somewhere, in sorrow, a flower blooms, 
 And lifts its face to the sky and weeps ; 
 Somewhere it grows, and the angel knows, 
 But the angel the secret forever keeps. 
 
 And ever the angel ^ stern and cold, 
 Standeth silent and answereth not ; 
 And the sword he doth hold is fiery gold, 
 And its blade is inlaid with fire hot. 
 
 And ever the faces, sad and white. 
 Rise np against him and wrap hhn rou7td. 
 And his sivord is the light in the awftd night. 
 And the somid of sobs is the only sound. 
 
MYTH. 
 
 The stories of the Eld are ever young, 
 The stories of to-day are ever old, 
 The very Bible of the earth was sung. 
 When first mythology was told. 
 
 I. 
 
 Can a myth die, that's made of cloud and sky, 
 And land, and sea, and calm, and raging storm, 
 That's woven of the light and webbed with night. 
 With mountains, valleys and the sunbeam warm ? 
 Can a myth die that tells how nature strives 
 With rugged substance, in each thing that lives ? 
 Can a myth die that blooms with every flower, 
 That paints the flying hour and tells us oft, 
 Of fate that lives, of chance that gives ; 
 That names the mighty powers that high aloft 
 Wander at will in zephyrs soft. 
 Or fly upon the gale in cloud-wreath pale. 
 That peoples the unknown on land and sea 
 With beings rare wrapped round in mystery? 
 
 II. 
 
 We dress the new in garments of the old. 
 And, lo ! the new is but the old refined ; 
 
 (47) 
 
48 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 We clothe the old in modern gold, 
 And through its tracery fine old faces shine ; 
 We reach our arms above, we reach below, 
 And sweep the world with all-embracing quest ; 
 But in the wide embrace our arms enlace 
 Only the myths the world has loved the best. 
 
 FROM THE VILLAGES. 
 
 Out from the fields and woods the visions came, 
 Up from the ocean's, deep, mysterious gloom ; 
 Man saw and loved them, and to each a name 
 Gave, and within his heart he found them room ; 
 
 And the winds blew on, and dust of ages fell 
 And wrapped their images, and covered o'er 
 The legends that the elders loved to tell. 
 Of the great gods who lived and ruled of yore. 
 
 But to the woods and fields they all had fled, 
 And dwellers in the wild found oft, by chance, 
 At morn or eve, that they were never dead, 
 ThriHing beneath some unknown being's glance. 
 
 And the rude people loved them, and did twine 
 Flowers round the broken statue, creep by stealth 
 To ruined fanes, and pour their gift of wine, 
 Beseeching longer hfe and perfect health. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 49 
 
 And these were pagans ; from the wood and plain 
 They drew their knowledge ; but to-day the wise, 
 In their great cities, wisely can explain 
 Goddess and myth, and trace their lowly rise. 
 
 But to the fields men go again ; the trees, 
 The grass that withers, the ephemeral flower, 
 The fitful sighing of the scented breeze, 
 Speak ever to their hearts of love and power ; 
 
 And deep beneath the wisdom of the creeds. 
 And nearer than the gods to whom they bow. 
 They recognized, forced by their daily needs, 
 That in their hearts they are pagans even now. 
 
 Out from the villages the faith has crept 
 In the Divine, that fills the great and small. 
 While theologians smiled and bishops slept, 
 Pan, from the river-side, did ever call ; 
 
 And dryads danced, and elves and nymphs displayed 
 Their airy limbs, in misty vesture clad ; 
 And now, the staid old world shrinks back dismayed, 
 But we, the villagers, laugh and are glad. 
 
 THE SONG OF ORPHEUS. 
 
 Then Orpheus sings ; the air is still as death. 
 The clouds hang low and drift along in tears, 
 
 4 
 
50 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 The sunbeams tremble, and the fluttering breath 
 
 Of dying day forgets the coming years. 
 
 Time bendeth down ; Fate stays its cruel hand, 
 
 And its death-dealing dart rests in the sky ; 
 
 And on the mountain-side the torrents stand, 
 
 Poised motionless, in azure ecstasy. 
 
 The boughs droop low, the rustling leaves are still, 
 
 Nor fruit remembers through the green to blush, 
 
 The wild things of the forest lose their will 
 
 To rage and ruin, and the perfect hush 
 
 Of night falls o'er the world's mysterious day, 
 
 While low the moon looks o'er the distant trees 
 
 And lends its tremulous and mournful ray ; 
 
 The tawny lion thinks no more to seize 
 
 The tender fawn that lingers on its way, 
 
 And in the sunbeam, mute, the motionless bees 
 
 On silent wings, the birds, astonished, stay. 
 
 Between the listening earth, the attentive air, 
 
 All gathered, wrapt in wonder, listening there. 
 
 He sang the sun, the light, the shining stars, 
 
 The life of all things ; then, in melody low. 
 
 He told of pallid death, of battle's scars 
 
 And all its pangs and all the awful woe. 
 
 He sang the regions, desolate and dark. 
 
 Where roam the hopeless shades, and long for light, 
 
 Crouching among the shadows, pale and stark, 
 
 Against the blackness of the endless night. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 5 i 
 
 He raised his voice ; hope thrilled them as he sung 
 
 Of heroes brave resting from toil and war, 
 
 Ever reclined Elysian fields among, 
 
 Where all the truest hearts of mortals are. 
 
 He sang the dead, before the unbending fates, 
 
 Receiving all the dole of wasted years. 
 
 Beseeching entrance at the iron gates 
 
 That open not, to anguish, nor to tears. 
 
 He sang the river, flowing soft and still, 
 
 Where happy souls, steeping their senses deep, 
 
 Yield to the arms of nature and her will, 
 
 And back to life, as children, silent creep. 
 
 He sang the struggle of the heart that strives. 
 
 He sang the courage of arm that dares. 
 
 He sang of blessed heroes and their lives ; 
 
 He ceased, he smiled, and, taken all unawares, 
 
 The listening ring around him silent stood ; 
 
 The creatures of the field and of the flood, 
 
 The fauns and satyrs and the nymphs that hide. 
 
 And the pale nereids, resting on the tide, 
 
 Drew a long sigh and vanished swift and still, 
 
 And lonely as before lay field and hill. 
 
 THE SONG OF PAN. 
 
 I am the lord of the world ; I fill 
 Everything living, good and ill. 
 
52 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 I am the cloud o'er the shining sun ; 
 I am the Hght on the web that's spun 
 Over the grass, Hke threads of glass, 
 And I am the dewdrops, every one. 
 I am the music that softly floats. 
 And the brazen trumpet's stirring notes ; 
 I am the song of the wood-thrush sweet, 
 And the tinkling bells and the dancing feet. 
 I am the trees and the growing grass, 
 And the song-bird that sings at morn and eve ; 
 I am the laugh that the happy laugh. 
 And the bitter tears of the souls who grieve. 
 I am I ; in the dark I He, 
 Weaving the dreams that float and fade. 
 I am the sunlight of summer-day. 
 The passing shadow, the deepest shade. 
 I am the joy of the man who loves, 
 I am the fear of the maid who flees, 
 I am the strength of the arm that works, 
 I am the rest of the soul at ease. 
 Everything — all things that spring and grow, 
 And silent lie, and the grains of sand ; 
 The ocean, the waves that come and go. 
 The shore, and the mountains that shade the land- 
 All is mine, and my life divine 
 Sparkles and flames like the beaded wine, 
 Roars in the cataract's noisy flow, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 53 
 
 Blushes and glows where the roses grow. 
 
 I am the dead, for the dead I claim ; 
 
 I am the giver of pride and shame. 
 
 Rivers murmur my voice, and low 
 
 Sobs the gray sea in my ebb and flow. 
 
 Rattling rain and whispering wind 
 
 Are but the moods of my changing mind. 
 
 I am the winter, the smiling spring. 
 
 The buds that burst and the leaves that cling; 
 
 I am the summer's burning heat, 
 
 And the autumn, creeping with weary feet. 
 
 Ever I live in the seed that springs ; 
 
 Ever I die in the death of things. 
 
 Ever I build up the mountains high, 
 
 Ever in quiet deeps I lie. 
 
 Drifting in mist of the morning cold. 
 
 Shining in sunset's blazing gold. 
 
 Life and death, and chance and fate, 
 
 I am ever busy, yet ever wait. 
 
 Mine is the power by which ye move 
 
 The modern world from its time-worn groove — 
 
 The force of the magnet, the power of the steam, 
 
 And the powers to come that ye little dream. 
 
 Now can ye name me, sons of men. 
 
 Or must I ever evade your ken ? 
 
 Haste ! To my temple your offerings bring ; 
 
 I am Pan, and the soul of the everything. 
 
 >TJ^ ^- i 
 
54 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 THE SONG OF BRAHMA. 
 
 Alone I dwell ; no man can tell 
 The secret of my dwelling-place. 
 Alone I dwell ; in tiny cell 
 I wrap the spark, deep in the dark, 
 Turning away my shining face. 
 
 O weary night, whose endless years 
 Are lost in tears, 
 
 While waves of ever-flowing time 
 In silence glide on noiseless tide. 
 
 glowing day, when in the play 
 Of life I take an actor's place. 
 And revel in its wild array 
 
 And struggle in its maddening race, 
 Or stand aside, yet still preside. 
 And scenes shift on while I abide. 
 
 This is my sport ; the starry vault 
 Would cease to spin did I cry, " Halt !' 
 Unto its fiery charioteers, 
 Once in a thousand million years. 
 
 1 burn to live, tho' I am life ; 
 I long to be a million lives ; 
 
 I yearn to mingle in the strife 
 
 Of atoms, swarming in their hives. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 55 
 
 No anger stirs my heart when ye 
 Hurl mad defiance up to me ; 
 No pity holds my arm ; I sweep 
 Your countless millions — as ye reap 
 Your fields of grain — to death and night, 
 With war and famine, age and blight ; 
 For all the life for which ye long. 
 And all the joys ye cling to, seem 
 To me but baubles — some faint song 
 That lulls the ear with passing strain, 
 And into silence dies again ; 
 Your aeons, moments in my dream, 
 And death to me is life, and life 
 Is death ; for both are but the throbs 
 Of my great heart, whose life-blood sobs 
 And laughs, and rushes to the strife 
 That it creates, till, tired of play, 
 I fling ye — broken toys — away. 
 
 I brood above the mist of things ; 
 I rest upon the sea of white 
 World-foam and fire, on silent wings. 
 Egg of the world, my cell divine. 
 First germ of life, from out thy dot 
 Come all things. All your life is mine, 
 For without me ye all are not. 
 All the dark night beyond the light 
 
56 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Is turned to day by me. My sight 
 Creates the things I ever see 
 With closed eyes, all dreamily. 
 
 / am the life that never lives, 
 I am the death that cannot die ; 
 I am the power that ever gives, 
 
 Yet ever has, eternally, 
 
 I give the spark that lights the dark 
 
 And springs to being, in the sea ; 
 
 I miss it not — the tiny spot 
 
 That makes your life ; I cannot be 
 
 Alone forever, ruling free 
 
 The endless void ; for, near and far, 
 
 I must companions make for me, 
 
 And people every circling star. 
 
 In me they live ; do I but chance 
 
 To wish that other worlds may be, 
 
 I sleep, and, sleeping, dream ; I glance 
 
 On things that never eye did see. 
 
 Behold ! I wake ; my limbs I shake ; 
 
 And, lo ! the vision of my dream, 
 
 Grown foul or fair, it liveth there 
 
 Created — filled with life's mad stream 
 
 And constellations, new and bright, 
 
 Speed through the blackness of the night. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 5/ 
 
 But when I sleep, still on they keep 
 Their busy way, nor droop, nor fail, 
 Nor suns go out in gloom and doubt. 
 Nor moon and stars grow faint and pale ; 
 For till the life I give I take. 
 They circle, though I sleep or wake. 
 
 For I am life that never lives ^ 
 And I am death that cannot die ; 
 I am the power that ever gives y 
 Yet ever has^ eternally. 
 
 AT MYLITTA'S SHRINE. 
 
 Before the brazen gates that never close, 
 On either hand, there pointed to the sky 
 Pillars of granite, tinted like the rose. 
 Against the blue of the unclouded sky ; 
 
 And inward, twisted strands of color led 
 To guide the footsteps of the stranger guest, 
 Where, like the flowers in some fair garden-bed, 
 The Assyrian maidens wait the fates' behest. 
 
 They clustered round each towering marble shaft ; 
 They lay in glad abandon on the green, 
 Like rosebuds, mid the purple shades that laughed, 
 And the bright sunbeams slanting down between. 
 
58 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 He stole, with weary feet and heavy heart, 
 Worn with the sea, thro' rows of beauty, where 
 The world's flowers blossomed, and from all apart 
 Sat one whose face was sad ; no trifling care 
 
 Weighed on her bosom, but the heavy load 
 Of the world's sorrow, with its bitter sting, 
 That passed her careless sisters on its road. 
 And fluttered to her heart, with wayward wing. 
 
 There fell the softened splendor of the sun. 
 Thro' golden mist, in dazzling aureole, 
 And in her hair its rays red glories spun. 
 Thro' which looked out the wonder of her soul, 
 
 From eyes, whose tint no lips can ever tell. 
 Speaking, in silence eloquent, his eyes 
 Responding, as the hopes within him swell 
 That need no words when love exulting cries. 
 
 Saying, " For ages have I loved and sought. 
 On thro' the world in guise of many lands, 
 Bearing the gift of love, the heart unbought 
 I offer thee, with these outreaching hands." 
 
 And she, still thro' her maze of golden hair, 
 Eyes speaking, lips all silent, cried to him : 
 "Thou art my love, perfect and brave and fair, 
 For whom I longed through endless ages dim ; 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 59 
 
 '' Nor law, nor life, nor death can ever mar 
 Our joy, for we have loved and still will love. 
 Whether on earth, or wandering wide and far 
 Among the stars that gem the skies above." 
 
 '' Take the poor coin Mylitta bids me give. 
 Unbind thy brow ; let thy bright hair fall low. 
 To me 'tis life to love, 'tis love to live 
 Where thou art and with thee thro' life to go." 
 
 And down the purple shadows of the past, 
 That fain would veil the lovely southern land, 
 We watch them, far across time's chasm vast, 
 Wandering till lost to sight, still hand in hand 
 
 HESIONE. 
 
 Weep, O ye maidens gazing down 
 The Trojan walls toward the sea. 
 Nor royal race, nor royal crown, 
 Can save the sweet Hesione. 
 
 For garland-crowned, in tears and chains. 
 She waits the monster of the sea ; 
 What soul that lives can bear the pains 
 That rack thee, sweet Hesione ? 
 
6o SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Fathers may weep and mothers pray, 
 But no escape is found for thee ; 
 A maiden falls in death each day, 
 And now, at last, Hesione. 
 
 Up from the wave, with angry cry, 
 He comes, and all the people flee ; 
 To look, to stay, is but to die ; 
 Alone waits, chained, Hesione. 
 
 But see leap forth a stranger grave. 
 Of noble bearing, brave and free. 
 And by her side he stands. *' Oh, save 
 The rose of Troy — Hesione." 
 
 One blow, and back the monster falls 
 Dead at their feet beside the sea. 
 Then loosens he the cruel thralls, 
 And back leads sweet Hesione. 
 
 " Now give, O king, thy promised gift ; 
 Give me thy steeds, like zephyrs free ; 
 My sword, that not in vain I lift. 
 Has rescued thy Hesione." 
 
 '' Out from my sight," the maddened king 
 Cries. '' Bar the gates ! No gift for thee ; 
 I owe thee nothing ; hither bring, 
 O slaves, my own Hesione." 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 6 1 
 
 But on the plain before the gate, 
 And fair to sight, where all may see, 
 The stranger doth a moment wait. 
 Who saved the fair Hesione. 
 
 '* I go, O king ; but back I come. 
 And bring a thousand swords with me ; 
 Destruction waits thy house and home, 
 False father of Hesione." 
 
 And days went fast, and silver sails 
 Came swiftly o'er the purple sea ; 
 And now, too late, with terror quails 
 The father of Hesione. 
 
THE CRY OF PROMETHEUS. 
 
 I. 
 
 I, lone Prometheus, of the stolen brand 
 Caught, blazing, from the fireside of the gods, 
 Who in Olympus kept the ruddy fire. 
 While pale-faced mortals shook with biting cold, 
 Now, chained forever, high beyond the cloud. 
 Amid the boundless ice-field, and the rocks 
 Stern, unrelenting, as the powers above, 
 Cry, in defiance, through the dismal night. 
 
 II. 
 
 O Zeus, I robbed thy hearth ; do now thy worst. 
 O race Olympian, gaze, with faces drawn 
 With endless laughter, looking down on me. 
 Whose face is drawn and seared with endless pain ; 
 For up beyond you do I lift my eyes, 
 Through the hot mist of tears I cannot check, 
 And cry to him who rules you and your race ; 
 For ye are but the creatures of your day. 
 Though now that day seems endless unto me, 
 And far above, great Chronos ever lives, 
 Dwelling beyond you, in the realms of time, 
 Past, present, future, with his threefold face ; 
 And up to him I clamor, " Save me. Time." 
 For in thy past I murmured and I strove, 
 
 (63) 
 
64 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 And in thy present I consume with pain, 
 But in thy future men shall bless my name 
 And praise the gift I stole them from above. 
 
 III. 
 
 For men are but a simple, guileless throng, 
 Nor look they higher than the hills they see, 
 But down before Olympus bow they long. 
 And take the gifts the gods give, tremblingly, 
 While I was ever daring, like my sire ; 
 The immortal blood ran madly in each vein ; 
 I could not bear man's misery, and my ire 
 Was kindled while I marked his toil and pain; 
 For from the distant sky I saw the heat 
 Doled out to him each day with miser's hand, 
 Till, scorning danger and divine defeat, 
 I scaled the heaven and stole the flaming brand ; 
 And now no more in darkness they abide, 
 No more they perish with the deadly cold, 
 But gather round their fires at eventide, 
 In the long nights and winters, safe in fold ; 
 Nor will the fire fail, but brighter grow. 
 Gift wrung from gods above for men below. 
 
 IV. 
 
 O Chronos, greater than the Olympian crew. 
 Lord of the future, shall it ever be 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 65 
 
 That this, my deed, men shall proclaim untrue, 
 
 Or find its blessing turned to misery ? 
 
 For I have brought to man a blessed boon 
 
 Of endless comfort ; can it ever grow 
 
 In his mad hands, time coming late or soon, 
 
 A gift of death, a heritage of woe ? 
 
 Thou sayest, do I hear thee speak, afar. 
 
 That it shall be an ever-growing curse. 
 
 And earth shall brighter glow, a blazing star. 
 
 Flaming through night of worlds, while, curious, 
 
 The planets stare upon its ball of light 
 
 Till 'tis o'erwhelmed in one appalling glare 
 
 And leaves a cinder, wan and desolate ? 
 
 V. 
 
 Savior to-day, destroyer yet to be ; 
 
 Yet for to-day, men owe me thanks and grace, 
 
 And for to-morrow, vast eternity 
 
 Must find my daring soul some resting-place. 
 
 When these high rocks, these scarred and seamed 
 
 hills 
 Are melted by the heat, in fiery rills. 
 
 VI. 
 
 I watch the firelight in each happy home, 
 And glory in the new-gained hope for men. 
 No longer, cold and desolate, they roam, 
 
 5 
 
66 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 When the bright sun retires beyond their ken ; 
 For I can see, with eyes immortal, bright 
 With heavenly fire, the shining fields below ; 
 See how my dear loved race its way doth fight 
 To newer life, warmed by the fire's glow ; 
 How all the ages rush in progress on. 
 When erst they plodded with a laggard step ; 
 And I have given this last, best gift to man, 
 And though I die a thousand deaths, 'tis won. 
 
 VIL 
 
 For in the fire are all things : light and heat 
 For man to-day, and endless store of good 
 Through future ages. Spark of flame divine ! 
 No tongue can tell the ending of thy race. 
 Great earth shall change ; the face of nature wild, 
 And rugged rock, and frozen field shall yield ; 
 Night shall be turned to day, and floods and streams 
 And ocean give their secrets at thy nod ; 
 Space, with its weary leagues, a foot-path brief 
 Shall seem to him who, in some future age. 
 Flies over earth and sea, and soars the sky, 
 Nearer and nearer to the guarded height 
 Where tyrants dwell. Even the feeble mind 
 Shall, roused by fire, grow mighty, and a flame 
 More subtle than thy lambent tongue shall stir 
 The race of men to untold deeds of power 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 6/ 
 
 And untold kindness, as their souls grow great 
 In thy blest light, as trees grow in the sun ; 
 For without light men perish, and the grass 
 Withers away, and blighted petals drop 
 From the gay flowers, and desolation spreads 
 Like a dark cloud o'er nature and her bloom ; 
 But in the fire that I have given to man 
 Lies the one secret of his growth. His birth 
 But lowly seems, yet as he warmer grows, 
 His powers spring far above the stony soil. 
 Until he dreams of an immortal life 
 In regions where the sun, eternal, shines ; 
 And his proud spirit, cased in flesh no more, 
 Shall fearlessly, forever, higher soar. 
 
 VIII. 
 But jealous are the gods who rule on high, 
 Of man, nor love for him do ever show ; 
 And alway at his side some god stands nigh 
 To thwart him and his hope to overthrow. 
 Invisible they come, unseen they go ; 
 Yet, ere they go, they strike, and ever falls 
 Some savior of the world, by hate laid low, 
 Who, dying, for their aid, imploring, calls. 
 Thus do they fool the foolish race of men, 
 Thus bind them down forever to the wheel, 
 And smile a scornful smile at even, when 
 
68 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Men throng, devout, and in their temples kneel. 
 For man wrings all he has from reluctant powers, 
 Strikes down God's sword to reach the longed-for 
 
 prize ; 
 Though ever, through the hard-fought conflict's 
 
 hours, 
 He lifts to heaven in prayer his piteous eyes. 
 Smile on. Olympians ; man shall scale again. 
 In ages hence, your calm and cloudless height, 
 And stand before you, an avenging foe. 
 To drive you forth into the endless night, 
 Where no delight is, nor are couches soft, 
 Nor flowing nectar, nor your rich attire. 
 But only tears of anguish, as aloft 
 Ye see him, resting, mid your heart's desire. 
 Bring back Old Time ! Bring Chronos back to-day ! 
 Crown the great king whom Zeus has driven away. 
 Hurl down from yon proud height the immortal 
 
 throngs 
 To immortal misery, while we sing their songs. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Now can I look, with eyes made clear by pain. 
 Into the future and to distant lands. 
 Where no man dwells now ; but again 
 Great cities grow, numberless as the sands ; 
 And ever the celestial fire he brings. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 69 
 
 And ever grows the flame beneath his hands, 
 As, by its light, at evening hour he sings, 
 And o'er it in his hours of toil he stands. 
 
 X. 
 
 I can rejoice — I, brother of your race ; 
 Through all my pain my heart leaps up for joy. 
 Brother am I of every soul who looks 
 Beyond the heritage of to-day, and claims 
 The future's rich bequest ; who frets to think 
 That other hand than his may helpful be, 
 In some far-distant age, to bless the world. 
 I live ; for life immortal is my bane, 
 And in the coming days my race shall still 
 Spread among men, still steal the flaming brand, 
 Bring light to darkness, give to striving man 
 All the great powers the world of gods has used. 
 In war and peace my fire shall ever spread. 
 Till man becomes immortal ; yet whene'er 
 Men of my line shall seek to emulate 
 This deed of mine, then shall both gods and men 
 Seize on the daring one and chain him high. 
 And leave him writhing, for he cannot die. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Lonely and cold, I glory in my pain ; 
 For years shall fly and time forever flow, 
 
70 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Worlds shall decay with age and grow again 
 
 Into new youth, and new-born systems glow, 
 
 While I, immortal, shall forever see 
 
 The universe and all its destiny. 
 
 For over me are but the glittering stars, 
 
 To which I look in anguish, and beneath. 
 
 The fitful fires of men, when down I glance, 
 
 And gather joy through pain and panting breath. 
 
 What though I suffer ? Man is blest through me. 
 
 I brought to earth the soul and life of fire ; 
 
 I raised the captive to a throne, made free 
 
 To grasp the utmost gift of mad desire. 
 
 Like God he grows ; for knowledge, with the fiame, 
 
 Into his heart, steals like the kindling spark. 
 
 And ever, when they hear his dreaded name, 
 
 The faces of the gods grow stern and dark. 
 
 For he is like them, as the twig the tree ; 
 
 For he is like them, as the bud the flower, 
 
 And more and more like God he yet will be. 
 
 Until the coming of his destined hour. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Weep, gods Olympian ; curse me as ye gaze. 
 I love your curses more than all your praise ; 
 For ye made man own brother to the brute 
 That roams the plain and swims the silver sea, 
 Descendant of the meanest and the least 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 7 1 
 
 Of living atoms that in ocean be : 
 He, struggling, rose, slowly, in ages long. 
 Through sea to land and o'er the earth, a throng 
 Brutish, in war perpetual, still he rose, 
 Borne ever nearer in his dying throes ; 
 While, careless, on the heights, your songs ye sang, 
 And o'er his head ofttimes your thunder rang. 
 As from your walls ye leaned, in idle hour. 
 Dropping the crystal cup, the fragrant flower, 
 And watched him warring on the plains below, 
 And stole down, silent, when the game did grow 
 More eager, and he called upon your name. 
 He saw not, as now here, now there, you came. 
 Invisible — an unseen, deadly foe, 
 Withering with pestilence and poisoned dart. 
 Raising mad floods some wretch to overthrow, 
 And ever laughing when man's honest heart 
 Prayed, through the darkness, for your aid and arm 
 To shield him from your own malignant harm. 
 But time will find you out ; no longer then 
 Will garlands crown your images, or, when 
 He goes to rest, will he lift up his arms, 
 Beseeching succor ; for the fire that warms 
 Will rouse his pride and lift him up on high 
 Another step, and to Olympus nigh. 
 Weep, Hebe ! Here ! Iris, with thy bow ! 
 Weep, great Apollo ! Man will lay thee low ; 
 
72 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Weep for your lost Olympus, as ye roam 
 Through dreary ^ther, driven from your home, 
 Until ye light upon some unknown star, 
 And, on the earth, no more remembered are. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Now am I long forgotten by the world ; 
 
 Though over you I hang forever nigh, 
 
 And though ye know not, and my very name 
 
 Has slipt from memory or become a sigh 
 
 Of ancient fable, still ye worship me. 
 
 And I rejoice when down I look and see 
 
 The temples that ye rear to one who bears 
 
 Another name, yet he and I are one. 
 
 For to the earth he came from heaven high, 
 
 To bring you life and immortality ; 
 
 And life I brought, for life is in the fire — 
 
 Even life immortal — as the flames rise higher. 
 
 Who gave you more ? A savior such as I, 
 
 Or he, unknown, who, for a few brief hours, 
 
 Bore what I bear forever, while no sky 
 
 Contained for me a rest amid its bowers. 
 
 Who gave you life ? I, with my blazing brand. 
 
 Or he who gave what none have seen, or can ? 
 
 For mine the fire, not his, that warms the heart. 
 
 And mine the light that lighteth all the world. 
 
 Where is his flame that bringeth life and peace ? 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 73 
 
 For still ye war and toil and sin and die. 
 
 No life hath earth but mine, nor will the gods 
 
 Let peace, they have not, on the sad earth lie. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And now men worship me, yet know me not ; 
 
 For I am he who hangs upon the tree 
 
 Forever crucified, so high aloft 
 
 That ye imagine me to dwell in heaven. 
 
 The cross ye daily worship is but this — 
 
 The symbol of my fire ; for in my hand 
 
 I brought the spark hidden within this wand. 
 
 Now, bound upon it and uplifted high, 
 
 I warn the world that every striving soul — 
 
 Even he who brings a blessing to mankind — 
 
 Is by the gods, who envy him, destroyed. 
 
 Wherever bright eyes shine with hope and love, 
 
 Wherever men strive from the woes of life 
 
 To lift their fellows, there an unseen power 
 
 Standeth, invisible, with uplifted spear. 
 
 And man's defender falls, his hope laid low, 
 
 Lest he to be a god should by his knowledge grow. 
 
 But were I free, were there another prize 
 
 Stored up in heaven, in the Olympian's hold, 
 
 I'd scale the skies again and dare once more 
 
 Even this agony, could I but bring 
 
 Another gift, even life's eternal spring. 
 
74 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 XV. 
 
 I cry to you, I call down from my height ; 
 
 I am exalted, as was he who came 
 
 Down from the heavens, and even now your eyes 
 
 Might see me, in some glare of awful light, 
 
 A speck, lashed to the mountain's icy brow. 
 
 Come to me ; I am he who brought you life. 
 
 Come to me ; rest I offer, rest and chains. 
 
 For from above I came, as he ye claim, 
 
 Bringing, like him, to men a priceless gift. 
 
 Up to me daily, in your deep desire, 
 
 Unknowing eyes ye oft do tearful lift ; 
 
 But he has vanished, to his heaven gone. 
 
 Search the wide sky, and fail to find him there, 
 
 While I, who everything for you have won, 
 
 Writhe here above you in this dark despair. 
 
 Savior I was, but quite forgotten now 
 
 In the bright light that shines for you to-day ; 
 
 Forgotten in the gleam I brought below. 
 
 Lost in the shadows I have driven away. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 I cry to you, I call to you ; 
 Come unto me and rest ; 
 Come wear my chains, 
 Come bear the pains 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 75 
 
 That rend my tortured breast ; 
 
 For it is I who in the sky 
 
 Hang ever over all, 
 
 And God am I, though I defy 
 
 The Olympians as I call. 
 
 I wait the day, 
 
 I bless the ray 
 
 That upward shines at night ; 
 
 I bless the eve 
 
 When men receive 
 
 Their rest and its delight ; 
 
 But never day forever may 
 
 Release me from my pain, 
 
 And never night for me be bright, 
 
 Or bring me sleep again. 
 
 I cry to you, I call to you. 
 
 Be not deceived, for I 
 
 Am he to-day to whom you pray 
 
 For aid when death is nigh. 
 
 I cannot aid, O hearts afraid ; 
 
 To you I gave my all ; 
 
 Nor can I save you from the grave, 
 
 But still my tears can fall. 
 
 For you I weep while soft you sleep, 
 
 For you I suffer still ; 
 
 But never yet do I regret 
 
 Your joy that wrought me ill, 
 
y6 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 And nevermore, on sea or shore, 
 Shall mortal eye behold 
 Suffering like mine, in frame divine, 
 Which these hard hnks enfold. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Ages had passed, thousands of endless years, 
 When through the air a voice seemed down to 
 
 flow 
 From one I saw not, yet I shook with fears. 
 Soft was the voice, no echo answered low ; 
 Faint was it, but so clear, and came from far, 
 Even from the depths beyond the outermost star. 
 ** I hear your crying through the endless years, 
 I weary as I see you hanging there ; 
 Yet is your heart unbroken by despair 
 And burns to act again and longs to dare. 
 I, Chronos, too, am ready, go once more ! 
 I strike the fetter from each straining limb; 
 Go and relieve man's misery ; bear to him 
 A brighter spark, a far more subtle flame. 
 And let it burn from him each base desire. 
 As burns the dross in the fierce furnace fire." 
 Then fell my fetters off, and through the air. 
 Falling, like meteor, in a blaze of light, 
 I touched the earth, shining against the night, 
 Still bearing in my hand my wand of fire. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. jy 
 
 But me they scorned ; the vanquished gods once 
 
 more 
 Swarmed from their hiding-places, cold and dark, 
 And, rousing all the evil in man's heart, 
 They strove to rob me of the gift I bore. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 I, even I, am he whom men betrayed. 
 
 Yet in the days of darkness, when the light 
 
 I brought them seemed to fainter grow and fade. 
 
 They, half-remembering, searched the boundless 
 
 sky, 
 And dreamed that there I dwelt and did not die. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 But through the aether once again I heard 
 
 That distant voice, far off and yet so clear : 
 
 "■ Lo ! thou rejected one, I call thee back, 
 
 And fit again upon thy mighty limbs 
 
 The rusted fetters and the iron links. 
 
 And here I hang thee, on thy lonely cliff, 
 
 To overlook, for ages yet, thy world. 
 
 Yet in the future, when thy bitter cry 
 
 Comes up to me, beyond the stars, once more, 
 
 I'll loose thy chain and send thee once again 
 
 To the mad race that still to thee is dear. 
 
 Perchance they then may hear thee when the flame 
 
78 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Thou gavest does its work, though time be slow ; 
 And hearts may soften, as the adamant 
 Yields at the last before the fire's glow ; 
 And one day, but so distant, thou mayst be 
 Bringer to man of immortality." 
 
 XX. 
 
 So will I wait in pain, rejoicing still ; 
 For pain is of to-day , but joy doth fill 
 Past, present, future with its wave of light, 
 And still, within my heart hope shineth bright ; 
 For Chronos lieth not. Time, soon or late, 
 Bringeth, to even me, a blessed fate. 
 
THE SLEEP OF ALL 
 
 " I weary and would sleep, so wake me not," 
 
 Cried Ali, as he passed unto his tent. 
 
 *' My spirit longs, sick of the desert hot, 
 
 To drift beyond the twining weeds of care. 
 
 Beyond the rock-ribbed shores of life, to where 
 
 The silent waters of the deep sea are. 
 
 And rest in their cool depths, insentient. 
 
 Give me, O Sleep, in dreams, the things I miss, 
 
 The rest I long for and the peace I love, 
 
 And take me, lulled upon thy drowsy breast. 
 
 From all the maddening cares and woes of this, 
 
 Into the stillness of thy life above, 
 
 Where, floating silent, mid the voiceless stars, 
 
 No din of life love's perfect rapture mars." 
 
 Weary upon his couch he sank and slept, 
 While slaves all watchful round him softly stole ; 
 And sleep, with open arms, unto him crept. 
 And folded close his eager, restless soul. 
 And bore him to a land that's far away 
 From all the maddening din of life and day. 
 
 All things can come in dreams — the love we miss. 
 The riches that evade our toiling hands, 
 
 (79) 
 
8o SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 The golden smile of kings, the gracious glance 
 Of queens, the joy of war, the gleaming lance, 
 And honors, and the calm that never comes 
 To men on earth, even in royal homes ; 
 And these came to him, and that dearest bliss 
 Sought for, untiring, in earth's many lands ; 
 For lost Ayesha opened wide her arms, 
 And in her hyacinthine eyes there glowed 
 The sweetest gift by heaven on man bestowed. 
 His aged sire came to him, sleeping long 
 With his forefathers in their rock-hewn cave, 
 And in his ear, in accents kind and grave. 
 Poured sage advice and words of wisdom pure ; 
 And music rose, and every perfect song 
 That lingers in the heart while days endure. 
 His fevered pulse beat slower, and the line 
 Faded, betwixt his brows, contort with care. 
 And on his cheek the rose of childhood fair 
 Bloomed once again, touched by Sleep's pencil fine. 
 
 Noon passed and evening came, and still he slept ; 
 The moon rose full and clear, and through the door 
 Its light fell, and its beams, caressing, crept 
 Upon his face, lighting each feature o'er, 
 And no more heaved his breast with labored breath, 
 For Sleep had borne him to the land of death. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 8 1 
 
 AZRAEL. 
 
 Solomon, the king, sat by the road, one day, 
 
 That wound, thro' sunHght and thro' palmy shade, 
 
 From great Jerusalem — the travelled way 
 
 To the vast palace that his might had made ; 
 
 And as he sat he talked in idle vein 
 
 With a companion of the sons of Tyre, 
 
 Who strove a secret from the king to gain, 
 
 But ever failed to compass his desire. 
 
 And up the winding road unto them drew 
 
 A stranger grim and mighty, and a cold 
 
 And deadly wind upon them sudden blew. 
 
 As tho' down icy Lebanon it rolled. 
 
 " Whom may this be," the Tyrian asked, in fear, 
 
 ** Who Cometh, silent and uncalled, to thee ?" 
 
 ** 'Tis Azrael, mighty lord of death, and here 
 
 He seeketh, surely, only thee or me." 
 
 " Save me, O king ! thou canst, thou must ! 
 
 Waft me away with thy one word of power ; 
 
 Sweep me, v,^ith some resistless, mighty gust. 
 
 To distant India, for I dread this hour." 
 
 Then the king stooped and drew upon the sand 
 
 A magic figure, like a five-fold star, 
 
 And all the powers of air the dread command 
 
 Obeyed, and bore the Tyrian swift afar. 
 
82 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 But Azrael smiled : *' O king, behold how thou 
 
 Obeyst, unwitting, His almighty will 
 
 Who sent me for thy fellow even now 
 
 To India, tho' he sat upon thy hill ; 
 
 And as I passed I wondered, seeing below 
 
 The soul I seek in India, where I go." 
 
ABSOLUTION. 
 
 I. 
 
 Priest of God, unto thee I come ; 
 Day doth dawn, though the mist Hes deep. 
 TrembHng with dread from my home I fled ; 
 I have slain a man in the land of sleep. 
 
 Him I met in a region dim, 
 Where ever the sun shines faint and low, 
 Where the moon is far as a tiny star. 
 And rivers speed with a noiseless flow. 
 
 In the tangled wood he was lying hid ; 
 But I saw him lurking, and then I knew 
 'Twas the soul of the one since time begun 
 That had made me false when I would be true. 
 
 My heart was hot and my anger fierce ; 
 I knew in my dreaming his life I sought. 
 But with all my power, as I saw him cower, 
 I willed the deed that my hands have wrought. 
 
 Ask me not if his name I know. 
 For all the rest of my dream is hid ; 
 I only remember the river's flow, 
 And the dim gray light and the deed I did. 
 
 (83) 
 
84 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 But demons of death and hate that wait 
 
 For the soul that sins, my soul pursue, 
 
 And my hands are red with the blood of the dead, 
 
 And ever they cry the long hours through, 
 
 '* Murderer, though in dreams and sleep. 
 Done is the deed with thy soul's consent, 
 And there is no hope for heaven's gate to ope, 
 Nor will men have pity nor God relent." 
 
 II. 
 
 Son, no sin on thy soul doth rest ; 
 Blood shows not on thy trembling hands. 
 Unto thee can cling no awful thing ; 
 Thy soul was roaming in unreal lands. 
 
 'Twas but a dream when all things seem 
 Mingled with fantasy strange and wild, 
 And the soul of man, do the worst it can, 
 Is sinless in slumber and undefiled. 
 
 For life is the life of the waking day ; 
 
 Time enough in it for crime and sin. 
 
 But we sleep in the hours, like the sinless flowers 
 
 That heed not the world and its maddening din. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 85 
 
 III. 
 
 Out from the living, O God, I creep, 
 Naked and chill, to thy silent land ; 
 Friend have I none, I stand alone. 
 To wait my doom at thy mighty hand. 
 
 Naked and chill, though wrapped in sin, 
 In the dark and cold with only thee, 
 Nor glint of a star that's faint and far, 
 To light the night of thy world for me. 
 
 Whither, O God, wilt thou send the soul 
 Thou hast planted on earth and plucked away ? 
 For it grew, with the weeds of its evil deeds, 
 In the wood and fen, in the mire and clay. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Child of the earth, thou fragile flower 
 Bending down to the wind that blew, 
 Life shall seem but an evil dream ; 
 Wake to the life that is real and true. 
 
 Cease thy dreaming, the world forget ; 
 Lulled be the pain I made thee bear. 
 Sin and shame are only the name 
 Of the lesson I taught thee in sorrow there. 
 
S6 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Thou hast learned how the soul of man 
 Lifts, through error, its heart on high, 
 Up from the sin I placed it in, 
 To the bright, clear light in the starry sky. 
 
 Ages hence, when thy world and stars 
 Fade away in the mist they are. 
 Thou shalt weep, and in pity creep 
 Back to the life of some lonely star. 
 
 Love shall well in thy heart, and tears 
 Fall for the sorrows thou couldst not know 
 But for the years of sins and fears 
 Spent in the dream of thy life below. 
 
THE CITY'S GOLD. 
 
 Ye people of some lovely, perfect land, 
 
 Far from the plaintive murmur of the sea, 
 
 Passing your lives in safe serenity, 
 
 With none to rule you with unjust command, 
 
 Pity us, toilers in the busy mart 
 
 That hourly grows, encroaching on the sky; 
 
 Whose ships upon an ocean tossing lie 
 
 At the storm's mercy, while each trembling heart, 
 
 Crushed with anxiety, in sorrow waits, 
 
 Beyond your power to aid or understand. 
 
 Till certainty announces their dread fates 
 
 Or they come safely home, by zephyrs fanned. 
 
 For where our treasure is, 'tis truly told. 
 
 Our heart is, on the sea, beside its gold. 
 
 Ye dwellers in the wood and in the field, 
 Who watch the springtime in its glad advance. 
 Who keep the games of old, whose children dance 
 Around the flowers in May, and when the yield 
 Of generous autumn fills the bursting store. 
 Up to the roof-tree shout in joyous glee. 
 With hearts renewed, in store of plenty free. 
 Circling in dizzy round the scented floor, 
 Ye know not how our spring is fraught with care, 
 
 (87) 
 
8S SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 And autumn sadly shades the hght of Hfe, 
 Bringing to the toiler gifts of cold despair, 
 The tyrannous winter and its chilling strife, 
 While in the dawn the sun blinks pale and cold, 
 And sets in glory with its hopeless gold. 
 
 Give us thy gold, O sun ; drop from thy west 
 
 Thy shining bars, thy golden fleece of light, 
 
 And then go out into thrice -blessed night, 
 
 Ending our toil and all our weary quest ; 
 
 Or still we strive, still rob the night of rest 
 
 And lose the day, nor aught of beauty see 
 
 In the bright world that lives and grows in thee; 
 
 Missing the joy of living and the zest 
 
 That makes life perfect, while the haunting fear 
 
 Of penury stands ever in the gloom. 
 
 Like a dread spectre, seen each day more near, 
 
 Threatening our anxious hearts with sudden doom 
 
 When, missing thy bright treasure in the sky, 
 
 We fall, and with our earth-won treasures lie. 
 
 Beauty Imprisoned. 
 
 We long for beauty ; shut by loveless walls 
 In the dark city's heart, where all the green 
 Has long time withered, until now between 
 The rugged stone, where hurrying footstep falls. 
 The timid blade looks out, trembling in fear, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 89 
 
 But for a moment, ere the torrid heat 
 Scorches its Hfe, leaving it brown and sere 
 Beneath the careless tread of many feet ; 
 Where the wan tree above the garden-wall, 
 Dust-laden, shut from nature's kindly hght, 
 Sees for a fleeting hour its shadow fall 
 Upon the burning pave all desolate. 
 Yet not a loveless thing the city lies 
 Beneath its smoky cloud or burning skies. 
 
 By Day. 
 
 Ever by day the flying cloud is seen 
 Above the housetop, in fantastic shape, 
 Striving to hide the blue that still between 
 Its fleeces for a moment may escape ; 
 And travelling shadows flit adown the street. 
 And gleams of sunshine gild, with swift caress. 
 The dingy eaves, where earth and sky can meet, 
 Into a semblance brief of loveliness ; 
 And spots of green — mute, tiny plots of grass — 
 Show, in the arid waste, kind nature's heart — 
 Heeding not her sad voice, that oft, alas. 
 Cries in their ear, " Forever hence depart ; 
 Fly to the fields, far from the trampling feet. 
 Where wait, from morn till eve, the wild flowers 
 sweet." 
 
go SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Evening. 
 
 Not all on fields and hills doth beauty lie, 
 Nor doth she flee the city and its glare ; 
 Tho' huge it stretch, unshaded, sullen, bare, 
 Still over it forever broods the sky ; 
 And tho' we build aloft our gloomy walls 
 Of glaring brick, with chimneys square and black, 
 The loving light of evening on them falls. 
 And lends the beauty that by day they lack. 
 It takes the trailing smoke-wreath in its arms, 
 And paints its vapor with a myriad tints. 
 Giving its threatening cloud a thousand charms, 
 And thro' its fleece, in rosy color, glints. 
 When, floating down against the glowing sky. 
 The day calls, *' Come into the west and die." 
 
 A Smoke-Wreath. 
 
 Enticing winds attenuate its shades. 
 
 And dreamy airs bewreathe its sombre browns, 
 
 Till in the distance, as it thins and fades. 
 
 It loses, as it dies, its sullen frowns ; 
 
 For into color rare and tints all fair 
 
 Distils its darkness, till bright violet 
 
 And rosy purple melt upon the air 
 
 That has no lover when the sun is set. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 91 
 
 But, ere it sinks, each inky puff and whorl, 
 Each jet of steam that rushes to the view, 
 Is tipped with shining gold, each snowy curl 
 From panting engine showing beauty new, 
 As ever to the waiting sky ascend 
 Wreaths of pale snow, into its flame to blend. 
 
 The Factory. 
 
 The factory, with its hundred glassy eyes 
 Glaring upon the waste itself has made ; 
 In windowed ugliness and blank surprise 
 At the appalling blackness and the shade 
 It casts around it, bathed in glory hes, 
 While every dingy thing about it gleams, 
 And ruby light from every window streams. 
 As tho' within some raging flames arise ; 
 And all the red-brick rows, in blinding light 
 Paining the eye, through the long, shadeless day, 
 Are wrapped in mystery when cometh night. 
 To shame their garish glare with violet gray, 
 When sunset's glory fades from tower and spire, 
 Where last it lingered, with its roseate fire. 
 
 Steeples. 
 
 And the white steeples of the churches, things 
 So poor, so crude, so very cheap, that we 
 
92 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Think of ignoble things when them we see, 
 And the soul fails to soar upon the wings 
 Of aspiration and devotion true, 
 When pointed heavenward by design so mean ; 
 Neglected, in decay, or glaring new 
 With all the painter's adventitious sheen ; 
 Watch them at even when the setting sun 
 Pours gold upon them ; then they point the way 
 To struggling hearts for whom the day is done, 
 And tell them of a blessed, endless day 
 When nevermore can come the gloomy night, 
 Nor setting sun can dim the perfect light. 
 
 The Park. 
 
 Wild bit of nature, caged and caught 
 From out the forest and the meadow sweet, 
 Worn here and there and matted by the feet 
 Of romping childhood — beauty dearly bought- 
 Upon thy leaves the fiery sun has wrought 
 Its burning havoc, and thy grass lies low. 
 And all thy flowers that flaunt in gaudy row 
 Are only aliens, from the greenhouse brought. 
 Martyr thou art for us and for the souls 
 That know no better ; who have never seen 
 The ocean as upon the shore it rolls, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 93 
 
 Nor virgin forest with its perfect green ; 
 
 And your dead limbs, O trees that stretch on high, 
 
 Tell how, to please the hearts of men, ye die. 
 
 The River. 
 
 There, through the night, the river floweth still, 
 Stealing beneath the rumbling roads, and parts 
 The city, like a death that severs hearts, 
 With its dread waters gliding black and chill ; 
 But in the day, when light the world doth fill, 
 It flows, a band of blue, and sunshine darts 
 From off its mirrored wave, and joy imparts 
 To the far vista, where, on rising hill, 
 From either bank the houses sweep aloft. 
 And towers go reaching from its blue to where 
 Another blue above them beckons, there 
 To lure the wayward world with pleading soft ; 
 And, dark as death, all night it onward flows, 
 But red as eastern gold, at sunrise glows. 
 
 The Old Church. 
 
 Here, piled aloft, there rises, stone on stone. 
 The concrete prayer of ages — all its spires 
 Pointing us upward when the spirit tires 
 Of earth and life, and longs for heaven alone. 
 
94 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Here bells are ringing in the crumbling towers, 
 To mark the soul's long life in briefest hours, 
 And on the pulsing of the solemn air, 
 In rays that pierce the deep and holy gloom, 
 Come all the slumberers from the silent tomb. 
 Where time has laid them with its gentle care. 
 And stranded rays of color, rich and deep, " 
 Affright them as to shadows swift they creep 
 Among the clustered carvings, where they float 
 With the last echo of some lingering note. 
 
 Summer Night. 
 
 Night falls upon the city and its homes : 
 The leaden air comes dusty to the lips 
 As the sun, sullen, in the distance dips, 
 And on to other lands, exploring, roams. 
 The tired toiler thro' the darkness comes, 
 Seeking a breath of some inconstant air, 
 Maddened with visions of a seaside fair. 
 Where ever on the rock the breaker foams. 
 The sky above, a dusty, shining cloud, 
 Reflects a million lights that shine below. 
 And noisy music and the harsh and loud. 
 Discordant notes of singers come and go. 
 While weary nature seeks in vain to rest. 
 Craving a moment of oblivion blest. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 95 
 
 Summer Morning. 
 
 And morning breaks ; the glory of the night, 
 
 With its electric radiance lying low 
 
 Over the roof-tops in a hazy glow, 
 
 Yields to the majesty of perfect light. 
 
 The spires stand darkly out against the sky 
 
 And towering buildings veil their staring lines 
 
 In the soft light that everything refines, 
 
 Or, gloomy, on the red horizon lie ; 
 
 Where, hastening, comes the rosy, infant day, 
 
 Pink with the radiance of the coming dawn, 
 
 The dazzling beauty of the daring morn. 
 
 That runs in joy the stealthy night to slay, 
 
 And down the silent street its glory streams, 
 
 And rouses man from darkness and from dreams. 
 
 Autumn. 
 
 And autumn comes with sweet, sad, smiling face, 
 And at her touch the woodlands flame and die, 
 And golden gleams lie on the pale-blue sky. 
 And soft, faint haze obscures each well-known place; 
 For from some unknown world, some faery land. 
 There drift to us the scents of burning grass. 
 Of pine and spruce, that ever o'er us pass. 
 To linger in the distance ; roof-trees stand 
 
96 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Lost in a hazy sea, and all things seem, 
 In the sweet, golden light that never burns. 
 Like to a world unknown — a blessed dream 
 Of all the joys for which the spirit yearns ; 
 And, silent, in our hearts we long and sigh 
 For all we love, that ever far doth lie. 
 
 After the Snow. 
 
 The frosty air is perfect. Thou hast caught 
 Each baleful odor, and, imprisoned, it lies 
 Locked in thy starry crystals till it dies, 
 Pierced with a million arrows, thick inwrought 
 In faery lace-work and in patterns rare. 
 And now, from miasm free, the perfect air 
 Glows with a radiant brightness, and its sighs 
 Come scented, not with May-flower and the rose, 
 But with the essence that forever blows 
 Out to the stagnant world from Paradise ; 
 For, long time baffled, ever driven away 
 By dust and foulness, now the world is pure, 
 And lying radiant white, a waxen flower. 
 It comes to bless us for a passing hour, 
 And the foul earth a moment to endure ; 
 While o'er the towering walls the unsullied day 
 Shines glorious in the flood of perfect light, 
 Where heaven's blue sky, unmeasured, infinite. 
 
The war of light against the walls that lie 
 Below its brightness in sad undertone." 
 
1 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 97 
 
 Lies open, in uncounted leagues, to sight ; 
 For whose unbounded blue no name is true — 
 Amethyst, azure, every word must fail 
 To tell its wonderful and limpid hue, 
 Tho' lacing limbs of the bare trees would veil 
 The sky's bright face that ever glances through 
 The tufted twigs, ice-laden, bent and pale. 
 That creak and rattle when the winds assail. 
 
 Darkness and Light. 
 
 So, on the city, as the days go by. 
 
 There falls a beauty that is all its own, 
 
 And men may gaze and see in it alone 
 
 The strife twixt man and the eternal sky ; 
 
 The war of light against the w^alls that lie 
 
 Below its brightness in sad undertone. 
 
 The struggles of the Titans overthrown. 
 
 To gain the golden sky, or fail and die ; 
 
 And gazing up to heaven and heaven's clouds blown 
 
 Across its blue, its gold, its crimson dye, 
 
 The soul may for an hour dark fate defy, 
 
 And mock the darkness into evening grown ; 
 
 But at the last it turns with tear-dimmed eye, 
 
 And all earth's beauty fades into a sigh. 
 
O RUBY FLOWER! 
 
 O ruby flower, red-petaled flower, 
 Thy heavy perfume fills the air, 
 And drops of crimson, hour by hour, 
 Fall from thy blossoms fair. 
 
 The scents of paradise exhale 
 From every cluster, as we lie, 
 Drugged by thy tropic breath, and fail 
 To realize our misery. 
 
 We throb with fevered dreams, or sleep, 
 In heavy slumber, hke the dead, 
 While miasms from the marshes creep 
 And float high overhead. 
 
 We wake. Ah ! shall we wake again, 
 And miss the vanished joys of sleep. 
 And reach despairing arms in vain 
 From some unfathomed deep ? 
 
 Or shall we slumber deeper till 
 No more we breathe, till heart doth stop, 
 And in the emerald meadows still 
 Shall blood-drops from thy blossoms drop ? 
 
 (99) 
 
lOO SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 TO THE SOUL. 
 
 O Soul ! I would I knew thee, what thou art 
 
 And whence thou art ; for ever men will rave 
 
 About thee, and how best the Soul to save. 
 
 Art thou within me, of myself a part ? 
 
 Dost thou o'errule me, calm this throbbing heart, 
 
 Fluttering thyself 'gainst body's bars, and crave 
 
 A something better that's beyond the grave, 
 
 Wordless for me, which thou canst not impart ? 
 
 Art memory ? Art thou love and hate and fear 
 
 And reason and the will and all the mind 
 
 That makes us noble ? Wast thou born the year 
 
 That I was — on that very day unkind ? 
 
 Or hast thou lived for ages, and is life. 
 
 To thy scarred self, a lull in endless strife ? 
 
 LIMITATION. 
 
 I am as one who, in the summer night, 
 Watches the star of eve shine bright and clear. 
 Yet deems her silvery radiance all the light 
 That can be, till a million stars appear. 
 
 I am as one to whose defective eyes 
 All that in distance lies is faint and gray, 
 Who sees no distant hills, no glowing skies, 
 But, groping blindly, ever wends his way. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. lOI 
 
 IMMORTALITY. 
 I. 
 
 Sometimes I try to think what hfe would seem 
 Were it dissevered from the Hnks of time 
 And transferred to some cloudless, perfect clime, 
 Without a memory of this troubled dream — 
 The loves, the hates, the hopes, even the fears. 
 That thrill us, gone forever, and no trace 
 Of all their quavering music in the place 
 Where we must spend an endless round of years. 
 Could I be I, and miss them, yet pursue 
 My new career, an immortal, yet the same 
 Who on the earth, from youth to age, once grew 
 And bore a part in all its pride and shame ? 
 Would it be Life, this Life, that throbs in me ? 
 Give it some other name, not Immortality. 
 
 II. 
 
 Not this I long for, but for quiet years. 
 
 Like the best hours of life ; that sweetest hour 
 
 That lingers, clinging, when in grief we cower. 
 
 Even give me all — the madness and the tears — 
 
 If thou, O fate, hast nothing else to give 
 
 Than a pale, exiled life ; if faces dear, 
 
 That I have Hved among and cherished here, 
 
102 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Must vanish, give me this same Hfe to Hve, 
 
 And call it ** Heaven," and I will take and bless 
 
 Thy hand for giving, drain the bitter hours 
 
 As medicine, and welcome, as thy caress. 
 
 The p^olden moments, the few fadinp; flowers, 
 
 That in youth's springtime for a day abide, 
 
 And glint, like stars, by autumn's brown way-side. 
 
 -FOR SO HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED." 
 
 - For so he giveth his beloved, sleeping." 
 Tho' waking hours be filled with pain and care, 
 In the still night they rest, wearied with weeping. 
 And float in dreams thro' heavenly regions rare. 
 
 Ever he giveth to the soul that sorrows 
 The dear companions who are lost and fled ; 
 Around they throng, in dreams the spirit borrows 
 Them from the storehouse of the silent dead. 
 
 The dear ones come, the dreams grow bright and 
 
 vivid ; 
 Life with them seems like the real life of old. 
 No doubts assail, no fears, no sorrows livid. 
 Come to debase those hours of perfect gold. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 103 
 
 Only an hour, but, oh ! how sweet the hour, 
 Tho' sad the waking when the morning breaks. 
 Leaving in clasped hand not even a flower. 
 Faded and wan, to cheer the heart that aches. 
 
 Yet this *'he giveth his beloved, sleeping." 
 One glimpse again of faces lost and fair. 
 One blossom in the desert, one hope, keeping 
 The lonely heart that sorrows, from despair. 
 
 DREAMS. 
 
 When dreams come thronging down the gates of 
 
 night 
 To join us in that wild, uncanny land 
 Whose name and place we may not understand, 
 Till we, beyond life's boundary, rise to light, 
 What souls are these we meet, and, joyful, see 
 Thro' closed eyes, as heart to heart we greet. 
 Spurning the real with winged, tireless feet, 
 And floating on in fairy-land heart free ? 
 What roads unknown we traverse in a breath, 
 What nameless oceans rolling blue below. 
 What realms ? Are they beyond thy shores, O 
 
 Death ? 
 And shall we ever dwell in them, and know, 
 
I04 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 When, spurning the lost earth, we rise and float 
 In endless singing, on some perfect note ? 
 
 What souls are these ? Are they indeed the shades 
 And phantoms of the living and the dead 
 Who wander on the night when life is fled, 
 Sleeping by day, rousing when sunlight fades ; 
 And do our inmost selves, in ghostly guise, 
 Go out to meet them in the land of dreams, 
 And wander on by fabled woods and streams 
 That only in imagination have their rise ? 
 Is every scene the passing fancy draws, 
 Is every character the mind portrays, 
 Created and made real by unknown laws. 
 And into space sent wandering on its ways ? 
 Are real and feigned things the same if we 
 From human limitations were set free ? 
 
 DOWN THRO' THE DESOLATE PLACES. 
 
 Shall I ever again hear you calling ; 
 Your voice, on the silent night, falling 
 On my dying ear, thrills of hope giving. 
 When I fade from life and the living, 
 Down thro' the infinite spaces, 
 Down thro' the desolate places ? 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 05 
 
 Will you call to me then in the night, 
 To me praying for help and for light ; • 
 Will you reach my soul with your crying, 
 The soul of me, hopelessly dying, 
 Down thro' the measureless spaces, 
 Down in the desolate places ? 
 
 Shall I answer your cry thro' the blackness, 
 Shall I grope for you on thro' the trackless 
 Deeps and abysses of being, 
 Hope from me endlessly fleeing, 
 On thro' the infinite spaces. 
 On thro' the desolate places ? 
 
 Heart, even now are you crying. 
 Lonely and lost, yet undying. 
 Sobbing and crying and calling. 
 Your dear voice answerless falling 
 Down through the measureless spaces, 
 Down thro' the desolate places. 
 
 WHAT HEAVEN MAY BE. 
 
 Cease, mourning spirit, cease thy cry ; 
 What carest thou what end to thee befall ? 
 Doth not the living world them blessed call 
 Who in their budding wither low and die ? 
 
I06 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 If we know nothing, when in death we he, 
 We miss the sorrows of the tiresome years ; 
 We miss the joys, but missing, too, the tears, 
 Into obHvion we may gladly fly. 
 Is it for hearts we long that hold us fast ? 
 Is it to faces dear we cling and cleave ? 
 Is it for loving glances that we grieve? 
 They all must fail us in the end at last ; 
 For in the brightest heaven could ever beam 
 These could not greet us, as men fondly dream. 
 
 The mother longs to see her darling child 
 From whom relentless death swept her away ; 
 The child, to manhood grown, yet never may 
 Show the sweet face that once her love beguiled. 
 The man, with years of life, now bent and gray, 
 Mourns the fond heart that cheered him for a while. 
 Missing, tho' lost in youth, the loving smile 
 That faded long ago in death's decay ; 
 And ages cling to ages gone, who long 
 Ever with the same longing, and who cry, 
 " Grant us to see our dear ones when we die." 
 And all creation, in one maddened throng. 
 Would cluster in the heaven, and seek one spot. 
 And search, with tears, for what, alas, was not. 
 
 Why may our longing not foretell the hour 
 When all we long for, we may have and hold, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. lO/ 
 
 When poverty may bathe in boundless gold, 
 
 And lovers know love's everlasting power ? 
 
 For fond Imagination, now so weak. 
 
 Grown great within us to a mighty force, 
 
 May be the blest creator and the source 
 
 Of all the rich fruition that we seek. 
 
 Could dreams come true and fancies live and grow, 
 
 And make a world in which we lived and moved, 
 
 What endless pleasures through our lives might flow. 
 
 Encircling us with all we fondly loved. 
 
 Then souls would find, in lives beyond the grave, 
 
 All the bright things they agonized to have. 
 
 Then, to the arms that reach, would gladly fly 
 The lost and loved, sweet as they were when life 
 Wrested them from us — children dear, and wife, 
 And parents, and old friends, as now they lie 
 Deep in our memories, and the scenes we saw. 
 The homes we lived in, aye, and distant lands. 
 To which, in life, we vainly stretched our hands. 
 Brought all together by a mighty law. 
 All things we long for and the flowers that fade 
 Upon the earth, made deathless and more sweet. 
 And sunlight, and the perfect evening shade. 
 And mountains to be climbed with tireless feet. 
 And oceans, and the distant stars brought near. 
 Up to whose far-off fires we gazed in longing here. 
 
I08 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 So heaven might be ; tho' logic prove anew, 
 Ten thousand times, that all such hope is vain. 
 Yet will the hope return and still remain, 
 And the soul's instinct in the end come true. 
 Somewhere, somehow, we yet may live and claim 
 The hearts we loved, the scenes we longed to see, 
 When from the body's chains we leap, set free. 
 And leave behind our sorrows and our shame. 
 Somewhere, somehow, the promise in the heart 
 May blossom in fulfilment ; we may own. 
 In a blest life beyond, a blessed part, 
 Reaping in joy the grain in sorrow sown. 
 And heaven be ours, and throngs of happy years 
 Made brighter by the shadow of our fears. 
 
 And long ago, at dawn of history's day, 
 
 Where yellow Ganges swept toward the sea, 
 
 Or in the jungle, or beneath the tree 
 
 Made sacred by the one who taught ''the way," 
 
 The men whom we deem children thought and 
 
 strove 
 With the deep problems of another life. 
 When the soul dies to earth and all its strife, 
 Entering the unknown realms of hate or love. 
 This, their solution of the problem old, 
 This is their answer to the hearts that seek. 
 Coming to us, when faith we held grows cold, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. IO9 
 
 When life is sadness and when death is bleak ; 
 Tell us, O theologian proud and sure, 
 Is thy belief more certain to endure? 
 
 -HE THAT LOSETH HIS LIFE SHALL 
 FIND IT." 
 
 When I have lost my life, 
 
 And a new one comes in its glory, 
 
 Can it bring to my soul 
 
 The joy I found in the old? 
 
 Shall I never lament 
 
 For the lost life's pitiful story, 
 
 Saddening, as centuries roll, 
 
 In a world that is silent and cold ? 
 
 When I have found my life, 
 Will it ever be worth the finding ? 
 Will the hearts that are near 
 Seem to me fond as my own ? 
 Or shall I wither in fear. 
 In the glare of its glory bHnding, 
 Missing the sweet and the dear 
 In a life that is splendid and lone ? 
 
 SIN. 
 
 As in our dreams we suffer sin and shame. 
 And wake in terror with their dreadful load, 
 
no SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Finding ourselves the same — the same abode, 
 And stainless hands and an unsullied name — 
 So may the soul that wakes from earth and death 
 Into the life that is the perfect day, 
 Drop from its naked form its sins away, 
 And rise unsullied from its dying breath; 
 For life and time are but the dreams of man, 
 And death and timeless ages wait us there, 
 And, measureless beside our little span. 
 Stretch, in the future, countless aeons fair. 
 And mortal sins may mortal be, and die 
 With the loved forms that only mouldering lie. 
 
 DEATH. 
 
 And if we sleep ? If souls go out and die, 
 
 As soft notes die upon the evening air. 
 
 And if we fade and wither like a sigh, 
 
 As fade the flowers that are so wondrous fair. 
 
 Why should we grieve? The life we lose was sweet, 
 
 Or it was bitter — good to have or lose ; 
 
 And sleep comes soft, and no man may refuse 
 
 The summons when he hears its stealthy feet. 
 
 And if it lead us through the dark, blindfold, 
 
 To where, we know not ; still the hour may come 
 
 When, with our eyes unbound, we may behold 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 1 1 
 
 Whatever waits — a prison or a home ; 
 Or will it lead, still on, with fainter tread, 
 Into some voiceless land, and leave us — dead ? 
 
 THE NARROW GATE. 
 
 Hardly shall they 
 
 Who riches have 
 
 Heaven enter in ; 
 
 Its gates are thronged 
 
 With all the wronged 
 
 And sinners stained with sin. 
 
 Hardly shall they 
 Who live in pride 
 Heaven enter in, 
 But lowly heart 
 Shall ne'er depart, 
 Failing its gate to win. 
 
 "LOVE IS STRONG AS DEATH:'— Proverds. 
 
 How can we know thy strength, 
 
 O Death, or how can we 
 
 Limit thy power, 
 
 If limit be 
 
 Beyond the might we feel, yet cannot see ? 
 
1 1 2 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Love we can know — 
 Love, with his tender arms 
 Enfolding — Love, that's blind — 
 Shielding us from the harms 
 BefalHng humankind. 
 
 But in the infinite to be, 
 When no more draw we breath, 
 But in the darkness lie 
 Under thine arm, O Death, 
 Can Love still strive with thee ? 
 
 Is there, beyond the world. 
 Of Love still need. 
 Or dost thou ever take heed ; 
 And dost thou spare, even there. 
 Him for whom Love doth plead ? 
 
 Are deadly battles fought 
 
 Out in the dark, the world above. 
 
 And war, with Love arrayed, 
 
 And thou, O Death, dismayed, 
 
 Yielding before the mighty arm of Love ? 
 
 Leaving thy destined prey, all scarred and faint, 
 
 In Love's own arms. 
 
 Revived by Love's glad tears. 
 
 Stripped of its fears. 
 
 And free from thy restraint ? 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. II3 
 
 Do we draw daily breath 
 
 In sufferance, 'scape thy darts, 
 
 Since Love for us has wrought, 
 
 And held back from our blindly-beating hearts 
 
 Thy sword, O Death ? 
 
 And can Love fail ? 
 
 For Love is strong as death, 
 
 And never can Death stronger be and slay 
 
 Love, our defender, he 
 
 Who is our help alway. 
 
 SEEK YE ABOVE. 
 
 ''Seek ye above." 
 
 The words were graven deep 
 
 On lofty column's base 
 
 Which heavenward rose, 
 
 And lost itself. 
 
 In a confused sweep 
 
 Of clustered capitals. 
 
 In the dim close ; 
 
 And arches piled on arches 
 
 Took their flight 
 
 Across dark spaces. 
 
 Where the light 
 
 Fell thro' the Gothic windows, 
 
114 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Tinged with rays 
 
 Prismatic, in their iridescent blaze. 
 
 And many a man 
 
 Had pondered, looking long 
 
 Upon the legend ; 
 
 Cast his eyes above. 
 
 And striven to find 
 
 SomiC secret plan, 
 
 And half divined, 
 
 The builder bold. 
 
 Daring, but sure, 
 
 Had hidden untold gold 
 
 Aloft in nook secure. 
 
 But some were bolder. 
 And with pick and bar. 
 Mounting the wall. 
 Engaged in deadly war 
 Against the solid stone, 
 Till it, indignant grown. 
 Came with a mighty crash. 
 All overthrown. 
 And lay in ruin dire ; 
 While with the fall 
 Sunlight streamed in again ; 
 But still the shaft rose higher 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 1 5 
 
 Among the ruins, fair and tall, 
 And cried, as the bright air it clove, 
 *'Seek ye above !" 
 
 DOUBT. 
 
 Mountain that blocks the pathway of a soul. 
 
 The shadow of whose threatening peaks 
 
 Against the sun of evening, seeks 
 
 Its gloomy shade over a life to roll. 
 
 Could I but move thee, and in yonder sea 
 
 Cast thee into its dread abysmal deep 
 
 And journey on my way, forever free. 
 
 Then would my soul with faith exultant leap ; 
 
 But, heart that doubts, faithless humanity, 
 
 Heart that dreads failure, heart that will not heed, 
 
 Sinking in doubt before yon tossing sea, 
 
 The evening shadows o'er thee faster speed, 
 
 And still thy feet must climb, where the road winds, 
 
 Up the steep hill-side, yet no pathway finds. 
 
 ILLUSION. 
 
 Am I a dream, a vision of the night, 
 
 Flitting thro' mighty mind in hours of rest ; 
 
 Am I a gleaming mote, now in the light, 
 
 But doomed to sink upon the earth's dark breast? 
 
Il6 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Am I a faint reflection, idly cast 
 Upon the bosom of a fathomless lake, 
 Which can a transient, passing moment last, 
 And then to nothing in the waters break ? 
 
 Am I a shadow, while the substance sure, 
 That casts me on the earth a moment short, 
 Lives on and moves in being, all secure, 
 Tho' in a moment I must come to naught ? 
 
 Am I a whisper of some mighty wind 
 That ever blows around the universe, 
 Or but the brief creation of a mind 
 That passing moods reverse ? 
 
 Am I a sparklet from some mighty orb 
 That ever pours its endless jets of light 
 Out to the infinite, which will absorb 
 Them in the boundless bosom of its night? 
 
 And are the stars above, the visible world. 
 But a phantasmal miragery that throbs 
 Above some endless desert, to be whirled 
 To nothingness, when the sirocco sobs ? 
 
 And is the real the invisible, which stands 
 When worlds and men have lived and passed away, 
 That knows no earth and sea, nor any lands 
 But the enduring land of perfect day? 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. II/ 
 
 THE PRAYER OF AGES. 
 
 *' O Baal, hear us ;" we have prayed and striven 
 Thro' the long hours, longing for light, 
 And the faint spark that thou to us hast given, 
 Flickering, goes out in night. 
 
 All that we have thou oft before hast taken — 
 First-born of man and of the brute below ; 
 We gave our riches, with our faith unshaken. 
 'Tis thee we seek, 'tis thee we long to know. 
 
 Is it in vain, O Baal, that we have given 
 Reason and all the powers that now are ours ? 
 Is it in vain that we with doubt have striven ? 
 Taking the fruit, wilt thou pluck all the flowers ? 
 
 Is it in vain that we have watched the dying, 
 Seen all our children slowly fade and fall. 
 Weeping, not murmuring, but in patience sighing, 
 ''Thou gavest and takest all." 
 
 We gave them all ; the babes to us outreaching 
 Their little arms in vain with frightened cry. 
 We turn aside, nor answer them, beseeching, 
 As thou hast turned from us and let us die. 
 
1 18 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 What dost thou answer, Baal, to our crying ? 
 With straining ear we hsten, but in vain ; 
 Echo comes back, in thousand echoes dying, 
 Unto our cries of pain. 
 
 For now, perchance, our lord is only sleeping, 
 Or thro' the distant sky is flying fast, 
 Holding high court in constellations, keeping 
 His great abode in realms boundless and vast ; 
 
 And from his sky, starlit, and us appalling. 
 No voice doth answer as the hours fly. 
 Only our echoes, back unto us falling, 
 As, in our anguish and despair, we die. 
 
 AN EPITAPH. 
 
 So, like a scent the wind wafts from the rose, 
 To us he came, and on the breeze he passed 
 Up to the boundless spaces of the sky. 
 To be diffused, yet garnered safely there. 
 Where lingering light is, and the faintest note 
 Of every melody that dies away 
 From our dull ears, and soars and soars aloft. 
 To vie with angels in their heavenly choirs ; 
 Where every thought that's blessed rises high, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. II9 
 
 Thro' the thin ether, up to God above, 
 And is received there on the pageless book 
 That tells for eyes divine our lives and loves ; 
 Wherein no evil enters, nor the thoughts 
 That flame with cruelty and wrong, for these, 
 Down to abysmal depths, sink beyond sight. 
 And float, a noisome cloud, o'er hell's dark world. 
 
 BEYOND THE SILENT STARS. 
 
 Beyond the silent stars. 
 
 Where last the sun did set 
 
 In dreamy bars 
 
 Of softest violet ; 
 
 Beyond the east, where sun doth rise 
 
 In rosy rays on drowsy eyes ; 
 
 Beyond the ebon night. 
 
 Pierced thro' with infinite light ; 
 
 Beyond the measureless blue, 
 
 Where rides the sun its circle through ; 
 
 Beyond the din of life, 
 
 Into the stillness infinite. 
 
 Where no regret can come, nor tangled cares 
 
 Weave us into their meshes unawares ; 
 
 Beyond the strife of troubled life, 
 
 We cry to thee. 
 
I20 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 THE GHOST 
 
 I. 
 
 Unto the spirit, worn with earth, but free 
 From all the ties of life, the electric air. 
 The endless space, the universe, lies wide, 
 Where it must find a home or homeless be. 
 For space, unmeasured space, which ever grows 
 Into the endless, is a realm unbound 
 For spirit, which itself hath neither length. 
 Nor breadth, nor thickness, so that millions, gone 
 From off the earth, might people worlds so small, 
 That to our mortal eye a point they seem, 
 Yet dwell at ease, in mansions built so vast, 
 Beyond the thought that's human, that the world 
 And sun and planets — yea, the mighty stars 
 That drift in milky strands across our sky — 
 Might be the rude foundations of the wall. 
 The clustered pillars, or the uncounted stones 
 That are piled up into the mighty fane 
 Where dwells the spirit who controls us all. 
 No time to live in and no place required. 
 And all the all to people with the dreams 
 That once were men and women, and no sound 
 To rudely echo, and no light, where eyes, 
 In the vast loss of all things that we prize, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 121 
 
 Are gone forever ; and shall the thought remain — 
 
 The thought that makes beyond the yawning grave 
 
 All that is left that we can call *' ourselves ?" 
 
 The thought, the chain of recollection faint, 
 
 The passions and desires that find no field, 
 
 The loves that meet no lover, and the pains 
 
 That find no members, senses, to shrink back, 
 
 Nor voice to cry in outraged agony ? 
 
 And if the world of thought, like the round world 
 
 Of matter that we leave, be also lost, 
 
 Then are we vanished, shades that fade and pine, 
 
 That know not why they moan, that hear no cry. 
 
 Even their own, can recollect no loss. 
 
 Have no bright hope, own nothing, but must drift 
 
 Like to dry leaves, whither the winds of force — 
 
 The mighty currents of an unseen world — 
 
 Hurry them ever onward. What are we. 
 
 In this brief life so careless of the hours. 
 
 So heedless of the sun and sky and dawn. 
 
 And gentle evening and the ringing song. 
 
 And heart of love, that makes the heart of life, 
 
 To scorn the moments that may never come 
 
 Back to our weary hearts when life is gone. 
 
 II. 
 
 Formless and chill I flutter round the world, 
 Nor can I clearly now remember what 
 
122 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 My name was in the happy days I lived, 
 
 Nor can I see, nor hear ; nor is there sun, 
 
 Or sound, to break the darkness and the still 
 
 And deadly silence that doth wrap me round. 
 
 Yet ever on me hangs a weary load 
 
 Of some forgotten wrong I did to men. 
 
 Of some neglected task I failed to do. 
 
 Or some o'erhanging danger on the heads 
 
 Of those who once to me were close and dear; 
 
 And thro' the night I strive to find their place, 
 
 And fancy I am near them. Then I throw 
 
 All the wan power that's left me into act, 
 
 And urge my being on to assume the shape 
 
 That once was mine, when I was once a man. 
 
 I am a thought, a whisper in the night ; 
 
 I am a breath, a recollection vague ; 
 
 I am a will without the power to do — 
 
 No patient limbs to bear me where I would ; 
 
 I am an eyeless, earless, senseless ghost. 
 
 That wanders on the chill and bitter wind. 
 
 That strives to reach the homes of human life, 
 
 And flies, reluctant, ever against its will, 
 
 To haunt the moss-grown tombs, to float and fade, 
 
 To linger in the damp, neglected shade 
 
 Of ruined dwellings, far from busy life ; 
 
 Yet ever strive I, thro' my lonely night, 
 
 To tell some tale I know not, speak some word 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 23 
 
 By me forgotten, give some warning vague 
 Of unknown danger, so that I, in death, 
 Wander forever round the haunts of life, 
 Warring against my fate thro' weary years. 
 
 III. 
 
 Thro' space I roam, 
 
 A ghost, all desolate. 
 
 Seeking, but never finding home. 
 
 Eyeless, the sun is blotted out, 
 
 And now — the sense of touch without — 
 
 I cannot tell if he shines on 
 
 My tenuous form, my features wan. 
 
 Or if I likeness have to what 
 
 I once was, but, alas ! am not. 
 
 Earless, the stillness broken by no sound. 
 
 Silence eternal wrapping me around, 
 
 No place, nor form, nor soHd world. 
 
 But by wild gust invisible ever hurled 
 
 Hither and thither ; even a brain 
 
 I have no longer, nor doth there remain 
 
 Of all its hard-earned stores a single word, 
 
 A line ; nor know I what, perchance, occurred 
 
 A year, a day ago ; but the vague sense 
 
 That something once was — ever the intense, 
 
 The recurring thought that here am I, 
 
 In ever-living, hopeless misery. 
 
124 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 No food I crave, yet craving everything, 
 
 From wanting all things, still I cling 
 
 To a lost something ; reach and strive in vain 
 
 In the vast emptiness where I remain. 
 
 To grasp a shadow, which I ever miss. 
 
 And headlong fall thro' some unknown abyss. 
 
 Time is not. Yesterday seems far away, 
 
 And misty years are but as yesterday. 
 
 I move my hands adown me, seek to find 
 
 What shape remains to me, senseless and blind ; 
 
 But touch is gone, the empty spaces fly, 
 
 As voiceless, soundless, through the dark I cry, 
 
 ** Thus will ye be when ye shall come to die." 
 
 THE WORLD-SONG. 
 
 Can it be true that every sob, 
 That every pitiful low moan 
 From stricken heart. 
 That every cry from souls alone, 
 That every throb, is but a part 
 Of one vast undertone. 
 Blending in perfect harmony, 
 Somewhere, with notes of joy ? 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 25 
 
 II. 
 
 Can ear divine, above the rush 
 And shock of conflict, sorrow-drowned, 
 In some eternal, perfect .hush, 
 Still hear earth's music loud resound ? 
 We miss our place; the heavenly bars 
 And lines are waiting till we find ; 
 We wander on, like wandering stars 
 Or snowflakes driven by the wind. 
 But ever wait, tho' time be late, 
 The chorus till we take our place, 
 And sing, before some golden gate, 
 The paean of a long-lost race. 
 
 III. 
 
 Fear not to sing, heart faint with doubt. 
 Nor shrink, dismayed, from discord sharp ; 
 A myriad notes wait yet, without. 
 To float from some supernal harp ; 
 For hands divine shall tune the strings, 
 And golden fingers strike the chord. 
 And, borne through space on flying wings. 
 Shall soar the music and the word. 
 And distant stars shall join and vie, 
 Singing the song that cannot die. 
 
I 26 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Song of the world, I cannot hear 
 Thy melody, while harsh and loud 
 Resound the cries of hate and fear 
 From the discordant, warring crowd ; 
 But faint and far, and, oh ! how sweet. 
 There steals into some listening ear, 
 In blessed moments, all too fleet, 
 The world-song, ringing loud and clear. 
 
ON THE HILL. 
 
 L 
 
 My home stands proudly on the highest hill, 
 Of scores that lift their rounded tops on high, 
 And o'er it softest winds, with sweetest sigh, 
 Linger and die when storms are lulled and still ; 
 With treasures from the world my rooms I fill, 
 Hiding the tinted wall with landscape sweet 
 And bits of life, while underneath my feet 
 Are tawny skins of creatures that I kill ; 
 But down below me, in the valley hot. 
 Lies a great city, filled with toiling men. 
 And little children, stunted with the strife 
 That I, in my more happy home, know not ; 
 But ever visions rise to accuse me when 
 I would enjoy the sweets that fill my life. 
 
 Here roses grow, for me alone they blow, 
 
 And violets hide and daisies nod and turn 
 
 Up to me as their sun, and yet I spurn 
 
 Their beauty ; for my heart in shame doth know 
 
 That down beneath me, in the vale below, 
 
 There grow no flowers nor grass, but burning street 
 
 Echoes forever to uncessant feet 
 
 That shrink and falter in its blinding glow, 
 
 (127) 
 
128 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 And from the windows glance the eyes of care, 
 And at the hungry looms men stand and weave, 
 And smile when, at the most, their hands can grasp, 
 From what they earn, a trifling, meagre share ; 
 Can I go down the grassy road at eve. 
 And meet them, and their toil-stained fingers clasp? 
 
 II. 
 
 What can I say ? How can I show my love. 
 
 While yet I cling to all the things I have ? 
 
 Shall I go sell my all, and haste to save 
 
 The souls below, leaving my heights above ? 
 
 Go down, and leave my breeze to blow in vain, 
 
 My flowers to bloom where none can see their grace, 
 
 And live among my brothers, in the place 
 
 Where all is wrapped in misery and pain ? 
 
 Will all my sacrifice and all my loss — 
 
 Deeper by worlds for these dear sweets I know — 
 
 Be understood by those who, hopeless, toss 
 
 Despairing arms to me from far below. 
 
 Or will they turn them, in their mad disdain, 
 
 And bid me climb my breezy hill again ? 
 
 For I am alien, and suspicions hide 
 My pure desire from those I long to bless. 
 And in the shadows of their hopelessness 
 The doubt and fear of ignorance reside ; 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 29 
 
 For, if I toil, I rob the rest of bread, 
 And if I give, they view me but as one 
 Who finds complaisance in a duty done, 
 Or in their hearts there lurks a spectre red 
 That cries, *' It all is ours ; he but gives back 
 To those he robbed a trifle from his store ; 
 All should belong to us, who all things lack. 
 We take thy dole as owners, claiming more." 
 And, in my doubt, I pause, and pausing, stay 
 Among my breezes and my flowers alway. 
 
 ON THE STREETS. 
 
 Will you let me breathe the air ? 
 Can I drink of the river's flow, 
 Stooping and quenching there 
 My thirst, even when you know 
 That the water is bought and sold 
 And its flood is coined to gold ? 
 
 Can I shiver in winter's blast. 
 Drawing my rags around 
 My freezing limbs and cast 
 Myself on some vacant ground, 
 Even though I be but a blot 
 On some priceless building lot ? 
 9 
 
I 3 O SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Can I eat when hunger cries ? 
 
 Can I beg for a crust from your hand, 
 
 While food flaunts before my eyes, 
 
 In its arrogance, when I stand 
 
 Before the flashing Hght 
 
 Of the bakery, in the night ? 
 
 Is all yours and nothing mine ? 
 May I slowly and carefully walk 
 On the streets that are broad and fine. 
 If I promise you not to talk ? 
 For my voice is harsh and loud. 
 And my words might draw the crowd. 
 
 Take my life — you have all beside — 
 If it's mine to give or keep ; 
 For I find no place to hide, 
 Nor a hovel in which to creep, 
 And you dare not say, ** Go find 
 Honest work, you lazy hind !" 
 
 I have sought, but never found ; 
 
 I have tried, but ever failed ; 
 
 I have gone an endless round. 
 
 And my cheeks have thinned and paled ; 
 
 But the shops and the mills are filled, 
 
 And, O God, my heart is chilled ! 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 3 I 
 
 For the world is owned by men 
 Who have all, and leave no space 
 For an outcast brother when 
 He drops from his only place, 
 And over his head there rolls 
 An ocean of struggling souls. 
 
 THE PRIDE OF WESTERN LANDS. 
 
 Pearl of the world, thou perfect womanhood. 
 Stately and pure and versed in all the ways 
 That make life lovely with ideal days ; 
 Yet all your sweetness, that we find so good, 
 Is possible, because, in darkest maze, 
 A thousand sisters, famished, strive for food. 
 Your leisure springs from endless hours of care, 
 Your sweetness, from the bitterness that wells 
 Over them in a surge of dark despair ; 
 Your purity, the sinless look you wear, 
 Your beauty, your enticing world of spells. 
 Your rapt devotion's hours, are passion's flowers, 
 That bloom upon a seething dunghill, where 
 Millions, your sisters, fester on in crime, 
 And piteous life they keep your toil to spare. 
 That you may have your hours of idle time. 
 Your brilliant speech, the sparkle of your mind, 
 
132 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Your eyes so deep o'er which your lovers rave, 
 Are possible because, grown old and blind 
 By nights of toil, they hurry to the grave. 
 And while they struggle on with trembling hands, 
 Ye pose, serene, the pride of western lands. 
 
 PALMISTRY. 
 
 Oh, let me see that hand so small, so fine 
 
 In all its curves, long-fingered, soft and smooth, 
 
 Nor draw it hastily away, forsooth. 
 
 Before I may thy coming fate divine ; 
 
 For as I scan thy palm, each little line. 
 
 Crossing its rosy firmness and its white, 
 
 Telleth to me a story that would fright, 
 
 And of thy fate gives many an ominous sign. 
 
 Yet shrink not, fear not, for my lips will tell 
 
 No awesome story unto thee of days 
 
 To come upon thee ; all with thee is well 
 
 If only we together wend our ways. 
 
 Give me thy hand ; thy dreaded fate be mine. 
 
 And with my hand, thy hand for life entwine. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 Weaver of fables of the olden time. 
 Raconteur of the ages, all thy tales 
 
Palmistry. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 33 
 
 Are threaded on one strand, in words that rhyme 
 With only war, and death, and dying wails. 
 
 Stories of cruelty, of blood and lust, 
 Of victories blazoned on thy livid page, 
 Of brutal hearts who to destruction thrust 
 The gentle and the poor in every age. 
 
 We weary of thy sameness ; tell anew 
 Some story that will light the weeping eye. 
 Alas ! thou knowest none ; there are so few. 
 Kings come and conquer, and at last they die. 
 
 Hast thou no word for all the silent throngs 
 Who lived, to fall before the victor's sword. 
 Who languished in their prisons and their thongs ? 
 Why silent ? History tells of these no word. 
 
 But of the victor, of the king who ruled 
 O'er quaking hearts, who carved his mighty name 
 High up above the millions that he fooled, 
 Thou tellest all the glory, not the shame. 
 
 DRIFTWOOD. 
 
 Floating upon Time's tide and cast ashore 
 Upon the world we know in modern day. 
 Come, piece by piece, the wrecks of ages gone, 
 
134 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Drifted to us by storms of centuries ; 
 
 For years, in tens of thousands, on have sped, 
 
 And men and nations flourished and are dead ; 
 
 And these, their reUcs, sought with eager eye 
 
 And treasured up as history's jewelry, 
 
 Are all we have to tell us what men were — 
 
 A tattered page of parchment ; papyri. 
 
 Rolled under many a fold on bosom brown 
 
 That throbbed in Egypt ; stones, with letters cut 
 
 By hand of man, and marred by hand of time ; 
 
 And ancient weapons, and the hammered gold 
 
 That ringed the brows of monarchs, mighty once 
 
 While yet they lived, and serving them, when dead, 
 
 To prove the story of their wondrous stores. 
 
 While in the sands of what was once the sea, 
 
 In ages so remote that mortal man, 
 
 Even at best, is an ephemeral thing 
 
 That lives in history's sunshine ; there we find 
 
 Whole nations buried, and the desert sand 
 
 Has blown o'er granite shaft and palace grand, 
 
 And smoothed the world for man to start again, 
 
 And live a new career ; and thoughtlessly 
 
 He builds his cities high and sinks his shafts ; 
 
 But when his toiling spade turns up the soil, 
 
 He breaks the vase that ages laid away, 
 
 And crushes through, with busy pick, the skull 
 
 That once was filled with fancies like his own, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. I 35 
 
 And planned and plotted — aye, and carried out — 
 Its plans to grand fulfilment, and he stands 
 Silent in stark amazement, for the New 
 Is but Eld revived, and there and then 
 He finds him face to face with nobler men, 
 And all his fancied greatness, all his skill. 
 Dwarfs in the grandeur of the dead and still ; 
 And tracing, step by step, the road they trod, 
 He grows more humble as he sees how they 
 Dealt with the mighty problem of the world, 
 And wrestled with the mysteries that enfold 
 All that is human, and he knows that he. 
 With all his progress and his thought acute, 
 Can tell no more than those lips lying mute. 
 
 WHEN WARS SHALL CEASE. 
 
 Man prehistoric, glorying in the fight 
 
 Waged for thy fireside and thy guarded cave — 
 
 Own brother to the wolf, the bear, the fox. 
 
 And bearing, as thy standard, likeness rude 
 
 Of these, thy kinsmen, giving mystic power, 
 
 In thine imagination, to the pack 
 
 Of wild and savage creatures — how are we 
 
 Wiser in this our day than thou in thine ? 
 
 For still we carry on our banners gay. 
 
 And still we raise upon our standards high, 
 
136 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 The old devices, grown more monstrous still, 
 
 From origin enwrapped in mystery ; 
 
 And round them all we rally in the fight, 
 
 And up to them in peace, we, loving, gaze. 
 
 And oft we weep when, in some foreign land, 
 
 We see, by chance, the emblem of our own ; 
 
 For flags we cherish, flags we madly wave, 
 
 Flags we fight for, and under, and obey 
 
 The sovereign of the flag, as though he be 
 
 Some distant god of awful majesty. 
 
 Yet flags will have their day, and some time may 
 
 In dust and cold neglect be laid away, 
 
 When nations coalesce and banners fuse 
 
 Their emblems, and the teeming people grow 
 
 Greater in number, but with fewer names. 
 
 Till time at last shall roll them into one 
 
 And join the world of men together, when 
 
 The last great nation shall absorb the least. 
 
 And stand alone, triumphant, gorged and full ; 
 
 Then but one flag will wave ; no alien hand 
 
 Shall live to lift another, and the gale 
 
 Of war, that flags blow out in, cease to blow. 
 
 And the lone flag hang moveless in the air 
 
 Unnoticed. Storms shall wear it, hanging there. 
 
 And dampness mould and sunlight fade its thread. 
 
 Till it is but a rag, left dun and dead. 
 
 But none will miss the flag ; almighty time 
 
 i 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 37 
 
 Shall sweep away its uses ; progress grand 
 Shall overwhelm with death the small device 
 That, for the ten thousand years, has served to rive 
 And keep asunder man from fellow-man. 
 For flags, and alien tongues, and nations' pride. 
 And all the wave of deadliest hate that flows 
 'Twixt race and race, shall sink into a calm, 
 Upon an ocean, ruled by one alone. 
 And reaching, filled with peace, from pole to pole. 
 Nor could we find, in that blest day, a cause 
 Why flags should be, save when the mind of man, 
 Spanning, in coming time, the vast abyss 
 That stretches from the nearest star to this, 
 Shall fire with warlike ardor 'gainst the stars, 
 And brandish high earth's blazing flag towards Mars. 
 
 "MY PEACE I GIVE." 
 
 The world, with arms uplifted, cries to him 
 Whose very name, "The Prince of Peace," is dear, 
 Whose promise to their hearts is ever near. 
 Ruling the might of shining seraphim. 
 But not "to send you peace," he, parting, said, 
 "As the world giveth," but the dagger red 
 And the stained sword, piercing the martyr's breast, 
 All these, and after, " my beloved rest." 
 
138 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 A CONSERVATIVE'S PLAINT. 
 
 " Conservative !" I was born so. Conservative 
 
 I'll be 
 Till I die ; I still say, " No modern change for me." 
 For I was born too late, or early, before the froth 
 Of newness from this modern world wore off. 
 I hate the rush of life, the bells, the noise 
 Of a world wild with new mechanic toys. 
 The alertness now demanded is too great ; 
 It wears my nerves out, I was born too late. 
 There was some peace an hundred years ago, 
 But in another, what ? Well, God may know ; 
 But I look for a silence, absolute. 
 When man has lost his hearing — his acute 
 And active senses dulled and evoluted 
 By gongs and bells and whistles ever tooted ; 
 And when his eyes have given out trying to see 
 The truth in a world glaring with electricity. 
 Even the way of thinking knocks me out 
 With all its fad of *' Criticism " and doubt ; 
 The old views all exploded, Socialism, 
 And single tax now, and the gorgeous prism 
 Of colors evanescent. Communism ; 
 When, if they have their way, cut work-hours down, 
 We all can live in villas out of town. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 39 
 
 And come in once a year and spend an hour 
 On some artistic task, by electric power. 
 They haven't spared the Bible or the Creed, 
 Or Ten Commandments, when they twenty need 
 To keep men straight and in some better order, 
 With all our social and political disorder. 
 The old ways were enough for me ; the light 
 Of gas and candle brightened up my night 
 Sufficiently to read by ; but now, speed 
 Is the one thing, and nobody takes heed 
 Who is run over. Infancy and age 
 Go down, alike, before our new-born rage. 
 Get there in time, no matter whom you crush. 
 Hospitals everywhere ; if, in the awful rush, 
 The victims of our scramble chance go under. 
 The surgeon, ready, saws you quick asunder, 
 Or puts together, or restores lost members, 
 Or fans the spark of your expiring embers. 
 I loved rehgion ; 'twas so satisfying, 
 So good to rest on when it came to dying. 
 You can't rest on philosophy securely ; 
 Marcus Aurelius did, but somewhat poorly; 
 But we can't all be Romans, and this science. 
 It seems to me, is a pretty poor reliance. 
 It tells nothing we want to know, but only 
 About antiquity, and makes me lonely, 
 Babbling about survival. If we all die, 
 
I40 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Being run over, as we faster fly, 
 
 How will the last survivor feel, the fit one, 
 
 Who lived it out when all the rest were gone ? 
 
 And there's Selection and Ancestral Traits, 
 
 And theories of Heredity ; it grates 
 
 Upon a mind like mine to hear men chatter, 
 
 As tho' the whole affair were any matter. 
 
 For I have traits that must have far descended 
 
 From several thousand years back, somewhat 
 
 blended. 
 But all agreed on one point : I had rather. 
 Than be my grandchild, be my old grandfather. 
 
 IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. 
 
 I do not think that I should care to live 
 
 When science still more scientific grows. 
 
 And new inventions by the thousand give 
 
 To coming men a thousand new-found woes ; 
 
 When overhead the bandits of the air 
 
 Fly in their wide-winged craft, and, hovering high, 
 
 Jeer at the crowded city lying there. 
 
 Below them, by their science doomed to die, 
 
 When shot and shell can fly an hundred miles. 
 
 And burst, all unforeseen, and ruin spread. 
 
 Where, but a breath before, all lips with smiles 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 141 
 
 Were wreathed, that in a moment more are dead ; 
 
 Or when some wondrous mind's inventive skill 
 
 Discovers — what we almost have — the power, 
 
 With a malignant death a world to kill 
 
 In one brief anguished hour ; 
 
 Or when the thoughts that now we hold concealed 
 
 Within our hearts are widely open laid. 
 
 And all things are to every one revealed, 
 
 And every secret to the world betrayed ; 
 
 When every passing word we speak is writ 
 
 By mechanism working far away. 
 
 And every sky by night is brightly lit 
 
 With light more fierce than ever shadeless day ; 
 
 For in that awful hour that soon must come 
 
 The power of evil hearts will leap to be 
 
 More deadly, until up to heaven's high dome 
 
 Man rules supreme — a bad divinity. 
 
 O PROBLEM ! 
 
 O Problem, still unsolved, 
 
 Recurring oft 
 
 In wakeful nights, 
 
 In days of sharp distress, 
 
 When thought becomes involved, 
 
 And all the soft 
 
142 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 And fond delights 
 
 Of earth seem valueless, 
 
 How can we solve 
 
 Or how thine answer find 
 
 For ever living, 
 
 Or for death that parts ? 
 
 Thoughts may revolve . 
 
 And faiths grow blind. 
 
 None giving 
 
 Comfort unto our seeking hearts. 
 
 O Problem old, 
 
 O riddle never guessed, 
 
 O daring quest, 
 
 Inscrutable, yet ever sought, 
 
 Our hands we fold 
 
 Upon our breast ; 
 
 For from our seeking we shall surely rest 
 
 When all our wars are fought. 
 
TEACH ME, O FLOWER. 
 
 Teach me, O flower ; 
 My soul to learn is slow, 
 Yet doth it know 
 That hidden in thy heart, 
 Nor wide displayed. 
 The' rich arrayed, 
 There lies, this hour, 
 A secret thou didst grow 
 But to impart. 
 
 Teach me, O flower ; 
 
 Life's meaning lies in thee, 
 
 Man's destiny, 
 
 The hope he'll miss or find, 
 
 Hid safe away. 
 
 Where ages may 
 
 Roll o'er thee, many an hour, 
 
 Before thy mystery 
 
 Is all divined. 
 
 THE SPIRIT AND THE FLOWER. 
 
 For him opens at day each beauteous gate, 
 With colors spread, in tints that live but here ; 
 In vivid tones, or delicate and faint, 
 
 (143) 
 
144 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 So lovely that no human art can paint 
 Color like theirs ; for though he come anear, 
 The artist fails, wrapt with delight so great, 
 At what his soul sees, but his hand cannot create. 
 
 The wondrous lines in curves of beauty fall, 
 
 Each perfect form striving to ever tell 
 
 The homeless wanderer to come in and rest 
 
 His soul, that aches for life, on dazzling breast. 
 
 While to his ear, entranced, faint melodies well 
 
 That to his wavering spirit sigh and call. 
 
 And all his sense, in sleep and dreams, enthrall. 
 
 And honeyed sweets and perfumes that betray 
 The sense till judgment falters and is lost ; 
 The nodding, waving motion of them all. 
 And blandishments that ever louder call, 
 O'erwhelm him, once the threshold he has crossed, 
 Till no more wends he on his desolate way, 
 But enters into woe and wills to stay. 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 If our life be the one great end and aim 
 
 Of all the life that throbs upon the earth. 
 
 And if that life be the poor child of shame 
 
 That we have thought it, with its sin-doomed birth, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 145 
 
 Tell us why life o'erflows with laughter ? Why 
 
 It revels in the beautiful, and creeps 
 
 Over the ugly things that fade and die 
 
 And hides their horror ; why it joyful leaps 
 
 High on the rock, beyond man's daring tread, 
 
 And blossoms in the snowdrift ; flashes bright 
 
 Where none can see it in the dingle's shade. 
 
 Or opens out its beauty to the night 
 
 Where none admire it ; doomed to faint and fade 
 
 When morn comes ? Why the world, from earth 
 
 to sky. 
 Is filled with beauty — one vast, glorious song 
 Of tone and color, shape and symmetry. 
 Which to the universal life alone belong. 
 Till land and sea cry out, and the wide air, 
 With the one deathless word they all declare, 
 " Love," that is life, and life that meaneth breath ; 
 That comes and goes in matter, scorning Death. 
 
 NATURE. 
 
 In countless ways the all-pervading power 
 That waits behind the painted scenes of earth, 
 Shapes and reshapes its handiwork, yet all 
 Are but the changes rung on one design ; 
 
146 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Temples of life, to draw the heedless in ; 
 
 Gateways to being, builded great and small, 
 
 Gilded with all the colors of the light 
 
 That, blended, forms the sunbeam and the stars ; 
 
 Shapes so fantastic that the mind can grasp 
 
 No idea of a form that nature missed ; 
 
 Yet are they all but variations rare 
 
 Of one device, none other ; for the world 
 
 Is but one temple, one vast gate of life. 
 
 And all the tinsel trappings do but hide 
 
 The shrine, where he who enters does the will 
 
 Of the great power that in the silence strives 
 
 Ever to live in all these varied lives. 
 
 BACILLI. 
 
 For you no kindly power, with loving art, 
 
 Adorns and shapes, with beauty rare, each form. 
 
 Beneath the eye of man, in unseen part, 
 
 Ye, in the darkness of the infinite, swarm. 
 
 Everywhere, alway, in the calm or storm. 
 
 Within the living, waiting there the hour 
 
 When ye shall rise triumphant and o'erpower. 
 
 Within the dead, where carnival ye keep, 
 
 Ever invading as ye steal and cower, 
 
 Till, on some sultry wind, ye to your carnage leap. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 47 
 
 Are ye, then, life ? Like flowers and painted things 
 That poise in sunshine on their gilded wings. 
 That hum the note that louder still doth float. 
 Leaping heavenward, from the palpitating throat 
 Of every bird that skyward soars and sings ? 
 
 Or are ye death, the desolate and drear. 
 Ever surrounding us with legions vast ; 
 Evading sight, lurking in guilty fear 
 Where never can unaided glance be cast ? 
 Are ye the silent foe of that blest power 
 Who, for us, works unceasing day, and night, 
 That hides from us its majesty and might 
 Within the blushing petals of the flower ? 
 And in the future, will the untiring hand 
 That builds again each shattered house of clay. 
 Conqueror, before death's flying legions stand, 
 And claim for all that lives a deathless day ? 
 
 MATER DOLOROSA. 
 
 We torture thee, O Mother Nature dear, 
 Knowing thy heart, that beats in every heart, 
 Feels of each pang the bitter, burning smart. 
 And yet could make the mystery plain and clear : 
 We claim it, we must know, we are so near — 
 Just on the verge of the all-powerful word. 
 
148 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Its whisper is around us ; we have heard 
 Its echo, give the answer now and here. 
 Thou wilt not ? See the many weary rounds 
 We've chmbed already, how life longer grows ; 
 But ever in our ear some voice resounds, 
 "Ye gain a day, but after, no man knows." 
 Dost thou hold back because thy secret dread, 
 Revealed, would leave us blasted, stark and dead? 
 
 We see thy face contorted, racked with pain ; 
 
 We see the limbs we bind trembling with fear ; 
 
 We search, thy secret now we come so near 
 
 That we no longer will in doubt remain. 
 
 Tell us, O queen of life, we dare, we claim, 
 
 Can we death conquer ? Can we learn the way ? 
 
 Is there for man, if he but knew, a day 
 
 Of endless pleasure in a deathless frame ? 
 
 Or is disease only a shorter road, 
 
 A blessing, with a frown upon its face, 
 
 A speedier, happier ending of the race 
 
 That still must end in death's forlorn abode ? 
 
 And is thy silence, if we did but know. 
 
 Only thy kindness, hiding endless woe ? 
 
 ARCHETYPES. 
 
 The flower looks up, the blushing fruit 
 Ever to reach perfection tries ; 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 49 
 
 From the vast trunk of life some shoot 
 Springs newly, tho' it falls and dies. 
 
 The teeming life in every form 
 
 Grows, age by age, toward beauty's height, 
 
 Glows brighter in its color warm, 
 
 Or whiter in its dazzling white. 
 
 All do their task ; they strive to mount 
 Some height beyond, we cannot see ; 
 In patience, while the years we count, 
 They strive thro' an eternity. 
 
 And ever in some unknown place, 
 For each thing, lives its perfect type, 
 Beyond the bounds of earth and space, 
 Waiting till time itself be ripe. 
 
 Then, face to face, our perfect flower 
 Shall gaze upon its image pure. 
 And man himself, in that blest hour, 
 Shall stand, like God, secure. 
 
 PANDORA'S CELL. 
 
 Pandora's box the cell is, given man 
 As his inheritance, and when the lid 
 
I 50 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Is Opened by the woman of the race, 
 
 Out come, in swarms, the senses, sight and sound, 
 
 And all our love of art, and music sweet. 
 
 And all the powers that struggle with the world ; 
 
 But still unsatisfied, unhappy still, 
 
 Man, hopeless, lives, until, within the cell. 
 
 He finds the hope of all things hid away. 
 
 That are to come and bless his future day. 
 
 LATENT RELIGION. 
 
 If all the effort of our aim at art, 
 With our faint reaching out for beauty's lines 
 And our small melodies that seem so sweet. 
 Are but the revelations of a power 
 That makes within us for the truth of God, 
 And helps us in our struggles to ascend. 
 Thro' Gothic arch and mellow symphony. 
 And hymn and chant, the nearer to his throne, 
 Surely, as these poor handmaidens of truth 
 Are themselves true, nor ever to be scorned, 
 Even in rude beginnings, then may we 
 Be bold for truth, and claim this also true. 
 That every impulse of a soul for God, 
 From earliest ages and from foulest source. 
 Was but a Hfting of the hands for help. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 151 
 
 Was but a raising of dull eyes to see 
 
 What, as the arms grew stronger and the eyes 
 
 Gained in their power to bear the dazzling light, 
 
 Surely was God's own self seen far away. 
 
 Yet, if some doubt and claim that surely he 
 
 Should manifest his truth so very plain 
 
 That none can doubt it, or can question ask, 
 
 Then we can point them back to nature's plan. 
 
 See the slow w^ay that all creation creeps ; 
 
 See how it reaches and has many a fall 
 
 Ere it be landed on the solid ground. 
 
 This is the law of life, and why should we 
 
 Think that, in things supernal, other laws 
 
 Should hold than this one, other speedier ways. 
 
 When all our history the same story tells 
 
 Of lost endeavor, countless overthrow. 
 
 Only to rise once more for new attempt. 
 
 With slowest progress. Time has not yet come, 
 
 Nor has it fulness, wherein man can say. 
 
 This is the end and this the Perfect Truth ; 
 
 This is the goal ; no longer need we strive ; 
 
 For strife perpetual seems the law of worlds, 
 
 And struggle endless is the law of life ; 
 
 And we believe that safely stored away 
 
 In the small cell, and in the dot minute 
 
 That represents to us the germ of life. 
 
 Must lie the impulse to reach out to God, 
 
152 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Since all creation has it ; hidden long, 
 But in time ripening, as those other powers 
 Ripen and burst into our finished sense 
 When man is fitted to believe and know. 
 
The gaily painted wing of insect bright. 
 

A CREED FOR TO-DAY. 
 
 The time is past when man can longer say, 
 "I do believe, and yet I nothing know." 
 And creeds must stand or fall, in modern day, 
 Beneath the sun of knowledge and its glow. 
 
 I can believe in an almighty power, 
 Far off and near — elsewhere, yet ever here — 
 To whom a million years are but an hour ; 
 I can believe, and tremble in my fear. 
 
 But of his being, of his heaven, the ways 
 He walks in, how he made this world of ours. 
 This is but myth of bygone, childish days ; 
 Yet still I tremble, till I see his flowers ; 
 
 Until I mark the plumage of the bird, 
 The gaily -painted wing of insect bright, 
 The pure, sweet face of childhood — in a word, 
 The beauty of the world by day and night. 
 
 Then to my soul I say, in whisper low, 
 
 No cruel or unheeding power is here ; 
 
 No demon warms us with this sunbeam's glow. 
 
 For to his heart his creatures must be dear. 
 
 But stop ! Life is, and life doth cease to be ; 
 Happiness is the passing of a day ; 
 
 (153) 
 
154 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Death and destruction, war and misery, 
 Ever among the flowers and sunbeams play. 
 
 For beauty withers ; at its heart decay 
 
 Steals ever in and saps its eager life. 
 
 Man, bird and insect are but for a day, 
 
 And songs are drowned in cries of endless strife. 
 
 And then I ask, " Is death the hideous thing 
 Which we imagine — pallid, dire of mien — 
 Or doth it to each living creature bring 
 Something beyond, more blessed, though unseen?" 
 
 Life cannot be the valued gift we think 
 When beauty he so cares for, else would he 
 Spare life for us, not drive us o'er death's brink 
 Into some dark abyss of misery. 
 
 And just because the trees grow in the light, 
 And just because the birds sing in the morn, 
 I feel that death is not the gate of night, 
 And that our dying is but to be born. 
 
 Seems nature wasteful ? God is nature ; then 
 When all the powers of earth are saved with care 
 And stored away, none lost beyond our ken. 
 Why should our life, the best, so badly fare ? 
 
 Heat, light, electric force and chemic power 
 Change but among themselves ; are ever one ; 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. I 55 
 
 Yet man despairs of more than one brief hour, 
 While endless time has yet its course to run. 
 
 Death is no foe, else were the God untrue 
 Who crowds with varied life the earth, the sky, 
 Who sends the light in strands of many hue, 
 And fills with human love humanity. 
 
 'Tis but the endless turning of the wheel, 
 'Tis but the dancing atoms rearranged ; 
 Still are they there, and man will ever feel 
 That scenes may shift, yet he be still unchanged. 
 
 For love can never die, the poets say — 
 And poetry is the voice of God in man — 
 And men may faint and fail and pass away, 
 But the eternal being never can. 
 
 Love cannot die ; man only dies to be 
 Raised to another life of joys unknown ; 
 For nothing can be lost, but endlessly 
 We live and love, we sin and we atone. 
 
 How ? we know not. Where, we shall some day 
 
 know ; 
 But to despair why should we^ fearful, yield ? 
 Eyes may not see the hidden, far-off glow, 
 But life and death are but the selfsame shield. 
 
156 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Here we see death, a grim and awful wall ; 
 There we may see it as the gate of bliss ; 
 Though from that side no loving voices call, 
 They may be listening for a voice from this. 
 
 ^^THRO' A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 The misty whorl of stars 
 
 Swept dreamily 
 
 As by an idle wind 
 
 That idly blows, 
 
 Wreathing their diamond dust 
 
 In luminous bars 
 
 That yet, between, 
 
 Limitless depths 
 
 Of ebon space disclose ; 
 
 Are these thy worlds, O Soul, 
 
 The hosts we see. 
 
 And miUions yet unseen 
 
 Thy boundless field, 
 
 In which, in time that's endless. 
 
 Thou shalt be 
 
 Possessor, prince and king, 
 
 When life to thee 
 
 Its garnered stores shall yield ? 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 5/ 
 
 CREATION. 
 
 Maker, however great thou art, how little I, 
 
 Yet, in my puny part, I emulate 
 
 Thy power divine, and would myself create 
 
 Something like thine beneath my little sky ; 
 
 For in my soul, a spark of thy great light, 
 
 There burns an agony of mad desire 
 
 To people all my brief and lonely night 
 
 With worlds like thine of ever-burning fire. 
 
 Creation of creation : didst thou fill 
 
 My soul with longing which I cannot still ? 
 
 Maker, is this, thy world, a story sad. 
 
 Made by thee to beguile some idle hour, 
 
 Or to forget, in dreams, thy endless power ? 
 
 Are all our pulsing thoughts, now grave, now glad, 
 
 These souls of ours that struggle on in life. 
 
 And faint, and fail, and end in hopeless death, 
 
 But fancies to thee, viewing all the strife. 
 
 To us so endless, but to thee a breath ? 
 
 And shall we vanish, with our worlds and sun. 
 
 When unto thee comes some new day begun ? 
 
 FORCE. 
 
 Out of the wonderful web 
 Of the unknown world-power 
 
158 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Drag we a strand, if we can, 
 
 Make it our slave for an hour ; 
 
 Use it as tho' we create it, 
 
 With buzzing of wheels ever flying ; 
 
 Use it, abuse it, berate it, 
 
 Too, when heedlessly dying ; 
 
 But when the wheels cease spinning, 
 
 And all the machinery slumbers. 
 
 We yet know not its beginning, 
 
 And beyond stretch infinite numbers. 
 
 What are ye, forces electric. 
 
 Magnetic, ye powers abounding. 
 
 Locked in the water and air, 
 
 And released by the spirit of fire ? 
 
 What are ye, waves never ending, 
 
 Into the telephone sounding. 
 
 Circling the world in your flying 
 
 On the slender telegraph wire ? 
 
 Out of the wonderful web 
 
 Of an unknown, invisible world-power 
 
 We drag the strands we can find, 
 
 And use them a day or an hour ; 
 
 But the source of their being. 
 
 To whom they are rightly belonging, 
 
 We know not, but claim all, unseeing. 
 
 Reaching ever for more in our longing. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. I 59 
 
 THE LAW OF LIFE. 
 
 In God's great law of life 
 
 Lies law of death. 
 
 If life be right 
 
 In his grand sight, 
 
 And living breath, 
 
 Then also death. 
 
 For both are one. 
 
 His blazing sun 
 
 Sinks in the night 
 
 To rise in light 
 
 On each new day begun. 
 
 GOD, FATE AND CHANCE. 
 
 God is the power of compassion endless, 
 But by his side stands Fate, silent and grim. 
 Holding his arm when he would aid the friendless, 
 Hiding his mercy when our eyes grow dim. 
 
 Stern Fate is colder than the God we cherish, 
 Nor is he moved by prayer or bitter tears. 
 He looketh down, unheeding, while we perish, 
 Regarding not old age nor tender years. 
 
l6o SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Mad Chance is Fate that never cares for willing, 
 But lets the lot fall idly where it may, 
 Raising one up to honor, thousands killing. 
 Caring not where it falls by night or day. 
 
 Chance is the soulless daimon of the sages, 
 The driven cloud before the fitful gale. 
 Ever the unsolved problem of the ages, 
 Hiding the face of God with motley veil. 
 
 TO THE SPHINX. 
 
 The world around us is an ancient book 
 
 That time has tampered with, dropt here a blot, 
 
 Or lost a page, just where we wish to read ; 
 
 But in it lie the secrets of our race — 
 
 All that the past can tell us, all that points 
 
 On to the future and the destined place 
 
 To which we journey by so many ways. 
 
 The very plan on which our lives are formed 
 
 Is writ there for the reader, yet how few 
 
 Go past the cover, with its binding gay. 
 
 Its sky-blue, ocean-purple, and the green 
 
 Of tree and meadow, and the golden lines 
 
 The sun marks on it thro' the lingering day ; 
 
 And the few readers who dip here and there 
 
 Gaze dreamily on words and lines that stir 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. l6l 
 
 A passing wonder, and anon they turn, 
 
 Listlessly glancing down a page or two, 
 
 And shut the book and say, *' How wonderful, 
 
 How beautiful is nature and how kind," 
 
 While all the time the riddle of their lives 
 
 Waits for their guessing, and the silent sphinx 
 
 Gazes across the teeming plains of life 
 
 To hear the answer that man never finds. 
 
 Yet, step by step, the tireless student treads. 
 
 Till in a moment, like a bolt from skies 
 
 All cloudless, flames an answer to his eyes. 
 
 For he can see how nature strives for life. 
 
 And watch until a million million seeds 
 
 Fall to the earth that one may cling and grow. 
 
 He marks the millions perish, and he peers. 
 
 With glass, into the secrets of their growth, 
 
 Reaching down to the origin of life 
 
 And studying the first step in being ; there. 
 
 Even there, below the struggle of the sex. 
 
 The allurements and repulsions, hates and loves, 
 
 He stands amazed at a new world of strife. 
 
 And looks aghast at millions in the gulf. 
 
 Straining to reach the solitary cell. 
 
 And give it life ; and then the cell itself. 
 
 Virgin, maternal, filled with unknown power. 
 
 He watches, as it chooses or repels, 
 
 Till one life grows by union, while too late 
 
1 62 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Millions — unmated, lone and desolate — 
 Fall back into the endless waste of death. 
 Then must he pause and ponder : who desires 
 This life so madly ? Can it be a god 
 Who urges on a million germs that fail 
 Where one succeeds ? or is each separate germ 
 One single spark of life that longs to be ; 
 A soul minute, that burns to take its chance, 
 Enter into the world of living things 
 And mount to manhood ? If such grand desire 
 Live in each tiny dot, each atom small, 
 Whence comes it but from burning passion's fire 
 To regain its life and conquer back the joys 
 It once possessed, but lost when pallid death 
 Swept it away to join the uncounted throngs 
 That stretch from earth to heaven and clamor long 
 Before the gate of life, where many strive, 
 But few can enter ; where are endless years 
 That make the eternal hell of lost desires, 
 Striving for new fulfilment ? See the chain 
 To which they cling, the links of blessings lost, 
 Of love of life, of country, home and kin. 
 The desire intense to leave, on the lost earth. 
 Children, successors to the parents dead. 
 Surely no god would urge them on to life 
 With half the power with which the soul would 
 strive 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 63 
 
 To quit the darksome underworld and gain 
 The blessed sunshine of remembered days ; 
 And hell may be the struggle of lost souls 
 To gain a foothold on the longed-for earth, 
 And heaven be life, the life they knew and lived 
 Ages ago, or yesterday, and lost 
 What time disease, old age or cruel war. 
 Led on by hosts invisible to men. 
 But eager for their places, swept away 
 Their blessed lives and turned to night their day. 
 So strive they now to gain an access there ; 
 Repulsed above, they vainly turn below, 
 Willing to creep to life on any terms ; 
 Plotting and striving, leading men astray. 
 Coming as minions of disease to slay. 
 Stealing as passion to the hearts of men, 
 And joying in the slaughter, leaping high 
 On the sea-waves to o'erwhelm and to destroy ; 
 Whom men call fate, blind chance or providence. 
 Or blame high God for ills cast on their head 
 By a million brothers, raging, lost and dead. 
 But as these once used life, so destiny. 
 Affinity to like, some way unknown, 
 Decrees it easy, or too hard, to live ; 
 Makes the world's outcast, cast forevermore 
 Out to the swarming souls that wait without. 
 Who writhe and strive before that outer gate 
 
1 64 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 That up from outer darkness bars the way 
 By which to enter, while it swiftly opes 
 To him who lived a blessed life before. 
 Yet highest blessing, there, is not to need 
 Life any more, but ever safe to be 
 Upon some distant star, which man may not 
 Ever o'ercrowd, and of whose very name 
 He lives all unfamiliar, calls it heaven, 
 And rest and peace, or happy, endless sleep, 
 But shudders chill at thought of dismal hell, 
 Not knowing what or where it be, nor hears 
 Above the din of ages, thrilling his ear 
 Unheeding, words misunderstood and vain, 
 Cried by earth's wisest and most perfect seer. 
 To him who asked, ''Ye must be born again." 
 
 TO THE CHERUBIM. 
 
 Cherubim guarding the gate 
 Wide as the way of the morning. 
 Darkness before ye, and fate. 
 Behind, the gleam of the day, 
 How can ye longer wait, 
 A myriad suppliants scorning, 
 Silent and stern and cold. 
 Forever barring the way ? 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 65 
 
 Can ye guard thro' the ages 
 The tree whose leaf is undying, 
 Crush in the heart of the race 
 The hope that springs in its breast, 
 Gazing off in the darkness, 
 Hearing our praying and crying ? 
 Can ye drive us afar, 
 And keep us forever from rest ? 
 
 Strike down the sword, and its flaming 
 
 Quick let the darkness cover ; 
 
 Hide from a merciful eye 
 
 The deed and the error of old ; 
 
 Bring back to Eden the lost, 
 
 Restore the dead to his lover, 
 
 Let in the life of the world 
 
 To the arms that would ever enfold. 
 
 IGNORANCE. 
 
 As we deal with our children, so does He 
 
 Deal with our wayward race, still children all. 
 
 Time will unfold, all must be told. 
 
 But let the secret of eternity 
 
 Stay for a moment ; for beyond recall, 
 
 When once we know, crowd all the evil things 
 
 That lie about us in the dark, whose wings 
 
1 66 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Flutter above, while we, in infant glee, 
 
 Watch their dim shadows, though we never see 
 
 The awful certainty that knowledge brings. 
 
 AGE. 
 
 Age, tho' it standeth nearest to the verge 
 Of the unknown, looks out with unmoved eye ; 
 It feels no trembling dread, tho' time doth urge 
 It to the very gate of earth's great mystery. 
 Time blunts the dread and soothes the frantic fear, 
 As to the unseen world it drags its victims near. 
 
 PERSONALITY. 
 
 Lost name, lost fame. 
 Lost pride, lost shame ; 
 Even this form I soon shall lack 
 That from the mirror glances back ; 
 If these be lost, what will remain. 
 When even the memory, sharp, of pain 
 Be gone, and joys remembered thrill 
 No more the frame whose heart is still? 
 
 But if some name I bear. 
 And the companionship I share, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 6/ 
 
 Of the innumerable dead, 
 
 Remains to me when hfe is fled, 
 
 Then may I enter death and dare 
 
 To claim my heritage, nor care 
 
 For a lost name, in dreaming, dropped, 
 
 For a lost heart, in throbbing, stopped. 
 
 Tho' lost be everything I own 
 But the undying I alone, 
 To it may cling as years go on, 
 Like strains of half-forgotten song — 
 Sad shades of sorrow, dreams of joy, 
 Which hours of reverie may employ. 
 While new endeavor will new meaning give 
 To the new name in which I still shall live. 
 
 DUST. 
 
 Only a beam of light 
 
 Shining in corner dusty. 
 
 Bringing forth to the sight 
 
 All that was hidden and musty ; 
 
 Only the dust of the air 
 
 Seen in the sunbeam's glory, 
 
 Dust of foul and of fair, 
 
 Dust with its commonplace story. 
 
1 68 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Numberless atoms of dust 
 Floating in beams of light, 
 Sparkling a moment, they must 
 Soon fade out in the night ; 
 Crying, in glory resplendent, 
 " We are eternal, and ever 
 Shine we as lights independent, 
 On in our brightness forever." 
 
 Darkness falls on the dusty 
 Specks of the wear of creation. 
 Down to their hiding-place musty 
 Sink they in dark desolation ; 
 Fading and gone from our seeing, 
 Wrecks of the wear of creation ; 
 Fallen forever from being, 
 Lost in a sunless damnation. 
 
THE SOUL OF CREEDS. 
 
 Seek we a new religion that will meet 
 
 The assaults of science, reconcile each doubt, 
 
 Embrace each doubter, do all this without 
 
 Robbing the world of consolation sweet ? 
 
 Ah ! who can find it ? Tho' it lie concealed 
 
 Deep in the heart of every ancient creed, 
 
 Yet for its finding, the discoverers need 
 
 To have the truth in their own hearts revealed, 
 
 And know how off to strip the useless husk 
 
 Of dogma from the perfect truth away. 
 
 And clear the web that hides its shining ray. 
 
 And turn to glorious day our sombre dusk ; 
 
 Yet all have taught it, saint and inspired seer. 
 
 But man has covered o'er its light, in hate and fear. 
 
 When beacon-fires grow pale, and light we know 
 
 And look to, into deeper darkness fades, 
 
 Leaving scant hope that, even as wandering shades, 
 
 We may survive when into death we go, 
 
 Then strikes the thought, with one malignant blow, 
 
 Into the soul's heart, that, when life is fled. 
 
 We, with our wondrous minds, may be as dead 
 
 As all the motile atoms that below 
 
 We count in scorn ; the creatures, row on row, 
 
 Set in ascending series, as the links 
 
 ( 169) 
 
lyo SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Between the inanimate and proud man who thinks, 
 And would forever on in wisdom grow ; 
 And then we, restless, turn and glances throw, 
 Not to the darkened sky, but to the mists below. 
 
 Is there no certainty, no knowledge then, 
 
 To rest upon ? Must the poor soul attain. 
 
 Or lose, fruition, yet in doubt remain 
 
 Till it has passed beyond the homes of men ? 
 
 Must martyrs die for truth beyond their ken. 
 
 And pass from flame to doubt, while we, who wait, 
 
 Hurl useless question at the ominous gate. 
 
 Or to a groundless hope respond, "Amen?" 
 
 Is all conjecture, and is nothing sure ? 
 
 Nothing revealed to cheer the fainting heart 
 
 And nerve the sufferer while the pangs endure 
 
 That thro' his frame, shrinking with agony, dart ? 
 
 Must life and soul go out to a dark fen, 
 
 Whose mist may hide heaven — or some devil's den? 
 
 O Plato, let us turn in doubt to thee, 
 Search thy forgotten page and study o'er 
 Thy lines to find a meaning, missed before, 
 When we were happy children and heart -free. 
 And life was bright before us, and the knee 
 We bent to old belief, that made us sure 
 That we were heirs, with future all secure. 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. I/I 
 
 Of golden ages of eternity. 
 
 Now, without faith, unsheltered, to the storm 
 
 We bend our heads, clinging, in doubt, and say, 
 
 " O teacher, wisest of the elder day, 
 
 To thee we come ; thy light will surely warm 
 
 Our trembling hearts, chilled with the thought that 
 
 time 
 And earth form all man's heritage sublime." 
 
 And from thy pages, words of comfort rise. 
 
 Dropped from the lips of one who passed his days 
 
 Seeking the highest wisdom and its ways. 
 
 And an eternal, not the Olympian, prize. 
 
 ** Unto the just no ill can e'er befall 
 
 Here or hereafter." If it please the Power, 
 
 That o'er us rules, unto himself to call 
 
 Our wearied souls, we wait the welcome hour ; 
 
 Or if to endless sleep he will that we 
 
 Sink, as a child may, in the arms of night, 
 
 Our mother, bending o'er us tearfully. 
 
 Whatever fate he gives us, God does right. 
 
 But the soul cries, ** Give answer ; shall I be 
 
 Blotted from life, or live eternally?" 
 
 All lands, all ages, struggled to attain 
 
 The blessed truth with tears, while we are still 
 
1/2 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 Wrapt in the sordid thought, how best to fill 
 Our lives with riches, and with them remain. 
 They were in earnest ; they were ever fain 
 To search the land and sea for gods to love, 
 To pierce with earnest eye the blue above. 
 And delve with eager hand the spreading plain. 
 And were they granted a success we miss ? 
 Did they come nearer to that Holy Grail 
 Than we, who dream of futures lost in bliss, 
 While spent in daily care we toil and fail ? 
 And runs there thro' the old beliefs one strain 
 That we have missed and never may attain? 
 
 Ye dwellers in the early Attic clime 
 
 Who peopled with your gods the woods and pools, 
 
 Whose groves and temples were the only schools 
 
 Wherein ye studied, and whose books sublime 
 
 Dwelt on the mystery of life and time. 
 
 Which we, in our mad race for wealth, forget. 
 
 Till at the last we long, with faint regret, 
 
 A moment, ere we perish in our crime, 
 
 Can ye not tell the seeking soul to-day 
 
 The secret of your *' Mysteries," and the peace 
 
 They gave to earnest hearts, the blessed ray 
 
 They shed upon the souls of ancient Greece ; 
 
 For tho' we strive those mysteries to unfold. 
 
 The hand of silence to your lips ye hold. 
 
 i 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 73 
 
 And richest wisdom from some fount ye drew ; 
 Self-sacrifice ye taught ; the lesson deep 
 That he alone, who loseth, life may keep ; 
 That death for others is the mighty clue 
 That leads the labyrinthine mazes through, 
 And brings us, at the end, to peace and light, 
 Out of the doubt and all the clinging night, 
 Into God's sky of dazzling, perfect blue. 
 So on the world the mighty legends grew, 
 Of some Prometheus, for the gift of flame, 
 Forever bound in torment, and the name 
 Of Heracles, and Orpheus, and the true 
 Soul of the trembling Psyche, as she drew 
 Her weary feet thro' death, to love pursue. 
 
 And all the elder faiths in this agree. 
 
 And thro' them all there runs a thread of gold 
 
 To knit them, and their rags together hold, 
 
 Of Priestcraft, Dogma and Formality. 
 
 Ever they cry, that all the lives we see — 
 
 Insect and flower and everything that is — 
 
 Belong to God and are forever his. 
 
 From lowest atom to humanity. 
 
 Ever when God cried to his devotee, 
 
 " Give!" he gave back — his first-born to the flame, 
 
 His flock, his first-fruits — and he puts to shame 
 
 Our boasting faith with pure sincerity. 
 
]\ 
 
 174 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 When, in his tears and his heart's agony, 
 Fie casts his dearest in God's fire and sea. 
 
 And Egypt rises to the seeking mind, 
 With her great mysteries ; but the busy hand 
 Of time unrolls her mummies, and they stand 
 Forth to the light, with all their thought refined ; 
 And though the world be careless and inclined 
 To question if she knew what we can know. 
 In all this progress and the brilliant glow 
 Of science, yet the more as we unwind 
 The spiced cerements of a faith that's dead. 
 And view it lying silent, bronzed with age. 
 The blood in the dry limbs no longer red. 
 But stilled forever from life's fevered rage. 
 We read, marked on thy forehead, wrinkle-lined. 
 Thou priest of Isis, '' Mystery divined." 
 
 What could ye tell, ye lips so dry and cold ? 
 What unto us reveal ? The quest of earth ? 
 The secret of our Hfe and of our birth ? 
 The story of a world even then grown old ? 
 Could all thy priests ever to us unfold 
 Their wealth of wisdom, should we wiser be, 
 And happier, or would bleak eternity 
 And all its secret lie to us unrolled. 
 As thou dost lie, so mute, in thy lost land ? 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 75 
 
 And didst thou hide, beside thy sacred Nile, 
 Under the mantle of its yellow sand, 
 On thy mute lips a bitter, scornful smile. 
 While all the world went madly on its quest 
 For the great secret locked within thy breast ? 
 
 Speak out, ye ancient oracles of Greece ; 
 
 Give sign, ye Indian sages, wise and pure ; 
 
 Can the perturbed soul ever endure 
 
 The throes of death, and gain a blest release ? 
 
 Shall it leap, joyful, to the arms of peace. 
 
 And live in realms of joy, unstained by sin ? 
 
 Or shall it come to birth, again begin 
 
 An endless round of living, not to cease 
 
 Till storms are o'er and the rapt soul can cry, 
 
 " My heart, no longer fixed on earth, doth long 
 
 Ever for the infinite, and all my song 
 
 Is, into blessed restfulness to die, 
 
 And dying to the world and things of time. 
 
 To find the life it lost in love's all-perfect clime ?" 
 
 Prophet of Islam, burning soul who saw 
 In the hot winds and in the desert sands, 
 And in the fleeting visions o'er thy lands, 
 Sun-blasted, still God's everlasting law ; 
 Whose iron creed, borne on the flashing blade, 
 Rose o'er the world triumphant, till, aghast, 
 
1/6 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 The wondering nations trembled, falling fast 
 Before thy onslaught ; scorned, beset, betrayed, 
 But ever, living, dying, to the soul, 
 Ordained thou art to witness in the world, 
 And carry on thy banners, wide unfurled, 
 Thy fragment of the truth's almighty whole : 
 " There is no God, but God, and he alone 
 Is the one God that man has ever known." 
 
 And thou, Rehgion of the western land. 
 
 Many-faced, mystic, rapt in pure desire. 
 
 Yet ever wrangling ; waging war with fire 
 
 And blood-stained sword, and kinsmen hand to 
 
 hand ; 
 Thou, thro' thy very hates, where'er they strove 
 Bitter as gall, still pure did keep thy shrine. 
 Wherein there lay inscribed this wondrous line, 
 Treasured thro' darkest ages, "God is love." 
 So mystic Hermes, on the verge of time, 
 Told to the world that ** God is wisdom pure," 
 And old Judea cried, ** God doth endure 
 Forever, and he knows no day nor clime." 
 His wisdom, love and power the creeds proclaim, 
 Tho' oft they hide his glory in the shadow of their 
 
 shame. 
 
 Come, Science, teacher of our latest day, 
 Your light on God and man for mortals shed ; 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 77 
 
 Revive the hearts that for a faith have bled, 
 That you, with cold disdain, have swept away. 
 Do evolution and your theories lay 
 Their rule aside when man aspires to see. 
 Beyond your form and law, the Deity ; 
 Seeking for truth, even tho' at last he may 
 Fall earthward, blinded by its piercing ray ? 
 Can seer and prophet tell the dreams they saw, 
 Thro' all the cloud that veiled their early day. 
 Yet live beyond your universal law ? 
 Or is that law so grand that we obey 
 Its mandate when we search the future gray ? 
 
 What right has man to loudly claim that he 
 
 Is made of finer dust than beast or bird ? 
 
 That while he lives forever, 'tis absurd 
 
 To grant them equal immortality. 
 
 Are, then, the flowers, the bees, the innumerable things 
 
 That bloom and fly and perish in a day. 
 
 More than we, evanescent ? To the ray 
 
 That starts from distant stars, and on its wings 
 
 Of light speeds for ten thousand years, and brings 
 
 To earth its twinkle, in its quivering beam. 
 
 How transient must both we and all things seem 
 
 In which man glories and to which he clings ; 
 
 But Science smiles, and her cold silence stings, 
 
 As o'er our hope her mantle gray she flings. 
 
178 SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 For ways are God's, which, to our keenest sight, 
 Are dark and devious, and they lead us fast, 
 Far as the eye of man can see, at last 
 Into the everlasting shades of death and night. 
 The lonely watcher on the highest tower 
 Of doctrine, built by priest and teacher wise, 
 Sees but, above him, ever darker skies, 
 That mock his effort and his boasted power. 
 Deep in our hearts our trembling spirits cry, 
 " O Infinite, whom we have tried to know, 
 Tell us, poor mortals, whither must we go 
 When, in the ending of our day, we die?" 
 But still the ages pass, nor sign they give 
 That man, beyond this life, may ever live. 
 
 Life and the living, time and many years. 
 
 Are in eternal reckoning nothing worth ; 
 
 Nor are the prizes and defeats of earth. 
 
 Nor merriment, nor endless prayers and tears, 
 
 But that the race should live and rule the earth. 
 
 That life in countless forms should bud and bloom, 
 
 New generations spring, as in the tomb 
 
 The elders vanish ; this alone has worth 
 
 To the divine and mighty power who rules 
 
 The changing nations and their changing face ; 
 
 Nor cares he aught for Men nor any race. 
 
 But wills that Man shall live, and ever fools 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 1 79 
 
 The sons of men, who build up creeds and cry, 
 ^' By these we climb to him and cannot die." 
 
 O Creeds, ye fail ; like human lives ye flourish 
 
 On myth and mystery, till ye fade and die ; 
 
 Like to the race whose hopes ye vainly nourish. 
 
 And with them in their grave ye silent lie. 
 
 But of your soul, the immortal part ye cherish. 
 
 Hidden within your edifice of clay ? 
 
 Surely it lives ; for never yet may perish 
 
 A spark of light from God's eternal ray. 
 
 Not from the heaven it fell once for our saving. 
 
 When half the race had perished with the drought. 
 
 Coming to calm the lips in anguish raving, 
 
 And win, too late, the victory over doubt ; 
 
 For since man first upon his planet trod. 
 
 He held within his heart the light of God. 
 
 Up from the depths of night he slowly rose. 
 
 Grasping each jutting cliff, each crevice small ; 
 
 And to his soul, still mounting, knowledge grows, 
 
 Of him who made him and who ruleth all. 
 
 Ever in creeds of cruelty and wrong 
 
 He weaves the right and glories in the true ; 
 
 Ever in aspiration's sweetest song 
 
 He echoes every soul that slowly grew 
 
 Out of the darkness, holding fast the ray 
 
l8o SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. 
 
 That glimmers in his heart, until it be 
 Like and more like unto that perfect day 
 That ever shines above him full and free, 
 Till evolution, God's untiring- plan, 
 Evolves a God-like soul from lowly man. 
 
 This is your soul — God's voice forever crying 
 
 Out in each cell and thro' each complex whole ; 
 
 The voice that thro' the ages faintly stole 
 
 On the world's sense, in living and in dying ; 
 
 The force unseen that urges to its flying 
 
 The new-fledged bird, that points the tendril high 
 
 Up toward the sun ; that suffers not to die 
 
 The lonely seed, but cheers it, ever trying 
 
 To win its way to nobler and to higher ; 
 
 Tho' oft o'erthrown, tho' hopeless lying low, 
 
 In each attempt coming one step the nigher, 
 
 To heaven's bright crown, won from embattled woe. 
 
 Your soul is the great soul in all, that strives 
 
 To reach perfection, thro' uncounted lives. 
 
 Ever it strives through every darkest age 
 To bring to birth a soul that loves the light, 
 That it may shine, star-like, amid the night, 
 In some blest calm above our human rage. 
 Ever the world takes madly up the gage, 
 Hating the soul that spurns its low delight, 
 
SONGS OF FLYING HOURS. l8l 
 
 And drives it down to death or far in flight, 
 And ruin overwhelms the heaven-born sage. 
 But through the years, in anguish and in tears, 
 These human stars appear, and shine an hour, 
 And by their Hght, 'mid doubt and cHnging fears, 
 The sons of men wax strong in faith and power, 
 And, mounting higher, in the strife engage 
 That yields at last life's blessed heritage. 
 
 THE CREED OF CREEDS. 
 
 Strip off the husk and tear the tinsel gold 
 
 Ages have wrought and stained with burning tears, 
 
 Wash off the clinging blood, the despairing fears, 
 
 The cruel dogmas, merciless and cold. 
 
 And under all, and deep within each shell. 
 
 As in a shrine, made foul without by sin 
 
 But glowing with a holy light within, 
 
 Lies writ one creed, that he who runs may spell ; 
 
 A power beyond, a brotherhood around, 
 
 A heaven to enter, for the souls who love ; 
 
 A life to lose, a life that must be found 
 
 Not in the void of azure skies above. 
 
 But in the soul itself, made pure and free — 
 
 On earth, or far, or near — there heaven will be. 
 
W 19 
 
To-Day and Yesterday 
 
 By DR. EDWARD WILLARD WATSON 
 1 Vol., 12mo., Cloth, Gilt, - - $1.00 
 
 ** Every lover of genuine poetry who reads this 
 volume will willingly accord the author an honor- 
 able place among those who may really be classed 
 among the poets." — The Christian at Work 
 
 " The character of this author's verse is medita- 
 tive and grave, and a religious sentiment pervades 
 his work ; the versification is almost faultless, 
 and the agreeable rhythm flows on with a certain 
 stateliness which is unusual in lyric poetry." 
 
 — Book Buyer. 
 
 " Of the sixty or seventy pieces that make up 
 the volume, some are very beautiful ; they take 
 hold on the memory after a single reading." 
 
 — City and State, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 Henry T. Coates & Co. 
 
 1326 CHESTNUT ST. PHILADELPHIA 
 

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